Mystic Melody
by DarkElements10
Summary: Bailey Pickett always dreamed of leaving Kettlecorn behind and being able to see the world. Now that she is, she is learning that there's more than meets the eye… BaileyxCodyxOC ZackxOC TapewormxMax OCxOC
1. PROLOGUE

__**Mystic Melody**

**By: Riley**

_PROLOGUE_

Going to school on the SS Tipton is the best thing that's ever happened to me. And I'm being completely serious about that, because _anything_ is better than living in Kettlecorn, Kansas. Don't get me wrong, Kettlecorn is nice and I miss my family there, but there's not much to do that's not about farming, and I always dreamed of being able to see the world. And trust me; I was finally able to live my dream. I applied to take a semester at sea on the SS Tipton (trust me, getting the money for it wasn't hard with my extended family) and I got it.

Unfortunately, at first I had to dress up and pretend to be a boy to get the spot.

My charade didn't last long either, before I knew it; I was floating in a hot tub with an airhead heiress and twin boys with my hair floating all around my face. Thankfully though, there was a space that had been opened after the heiress, London Tipton, paid her old roommate to leave, so I was able to stay.

I've been on the boat for about a year and a half, or maybe two, as I'm sixteen now, and it's been a blast. I made a lot of new friends, and really good ones in Zack and Cody, the twins, and even London. I became good friend with some of my other classmates too, but the best part was that we were touring the world. Every country that we went over in history is where the boat would dock, and that gave us time to go sightseeing and shopping. I have a lot of cool stuff to send back to my family in Kansas.

Everything is going great, but there's only one thing that I don't understand.

It seems that every time we go to a new country, Zack and Cody disappear for hours and when it's time to get back on the boat, they suddenly reappear, looking completely beat up. I've asked them countless times what was happening to them, but they just said that they kept getting into fights with each other, or rub the natives the wrong way, but I don't believe it.

It's just too much of a coincidence that it happens everywhere we go.

I've asked Cody about it, and he always hesitates, says that nothing is wrong, and immediately changes the subject. Cody and I are good friends and I'd like to believe that he wouldn't lie to me (which is the reason that I didn't ask Zack) but I can't help but think that he is.

All I know is I'm going to get to the bottom of it.

Even if it kills me…

* * *

**A/N: Yes, before you ask, this **_**IS**_** an elemental story, but it's a little different. It's a Suite Life on Deck story with elementals. When I finished 'Did You Runaway, Did You Fall Apart' I asked people if they would want to see a Suite Life on Deck/Elemental story, and here it is. It's a little bit different from the others that I have written: There is more of a story, there's definitely a plot that I'm going to focus on, you learn more about my characters/borrowed ones, and it's not completely about romance. This is more of a friendship/adventure story than romance. So, I hope you guys enjoy it and let me know what you think of it so far. ^-^**

**-Riley**


	2. Now that was very suspicious

CHAPTER ONE

* * *

"Congratulations Bailey, you got the highest score in the class"

Ms. Tutweiller gave a tight smile as she handed me back my science test. I couldn't help but let out a small squeal, I'm sorry; I take my grades very seriously, probably too seriously sometimes, as Ms. Tutweiller and some other teachers on the boat have warned me about correcting them in class. Really, it's not my fault, there's not much to do in Kettlecorn when you weren't doing chores. And when I had free time, I read a lot of stuff and it just stuck.

"Oh, and so did you, Cody." Ms. Tutweiller continued as she handed Cody his sheet of paper.

I looked over at him and saw that he was smiling too, but…I don't know, there was something different about it. His smile didn't seem to reach his eyes, and he barely glanced over it as he put it into his science folder and didn't touch it again. Now, I know a lot of people wouldn't think that that was weird, but this is Cody Martin that we're talking about, the guy that would tell Ms. Tutweiller if there was something printed wrong in a science textbook.

Well, I do that too…whatever, it's still weird.

"Zachary Martin…" Ms. Tutweiller sighed as she looked at another sheet of paper. "Well, let's just say that you have your sense of humor going for you." She stated as she handed him his science test. I giggled a little bit, Zack doesn't do well in school because he doesn't really pay attention, but he's still a good guy.

When he's not obsessing with girls at least.

I looked over at Zack, who was sitting beside Cody, and watched as he quickly turned his science test into a paper airplane and tossed it into the air carelessly.

Zack and Cody were so different, but the same at the same time. They had different personalities and interests, but they had the same faces and mannerisms. It was really funny to watch the two of them interact with each other sometimes.

"And London Tipton isn't here again," Ms. Tutweiller stated as she stared at the last piece of paper in her hand. I looked to my right and frowned at the empty desk. I tried so hard to get London to actually come to class and participate in what we were learning, but of course, she cared about her clothes and make up, and other superficial things more than learning. It didn't really faze me when she didn't come to class anymore. "Bailey, could you give her the notes after class today?" Ms. Tutweiller asked.

"Of course." I replied with a sweet smile. Even if London didn't get anything out of what we learned, at least I could get a good grade.

"Ok class," Ms. Tutweiller tossed the piece of paper aside as if she didn't care about it at all. "We're going to start new science projects soon, and you can choose whatever topic you like but please," she turned to me and Cody. "At least choose a topic of something that I can actually understand."

I blushed a little bit as I smiled and nodded. I could get a little overboard with science projects, especially if I was competing for a better grade than Cody. Ok, well, it wasn't an actual competition, not one spoken out loud, but I could feel the tension as the two of us worked on them.

"The only other rule that you have is that you have to work in partners." Ms. Tutweiller added. "And I don't care who you choose, just get started on it and start working." She went back to her desk and pulled out a large science text book and started to read it avidly.

"Hey Cody," I turned in my chair and smiled sweetly at my friend. I knew that he had a small crush on me and thought that I would use it to my advantage, plus I liked working with him. "Do you want to be my partner on the project?"

"Oh, sorry Bailey," Cody looked apologetic as he twirled a pencil in his hands. "I already agreed to be Zack's partner."

"Oh," I blinked in surprise. "Ok, maybe another time then." I replied before turning back around in my seat and flinching when I saw Woody Finkle's face in front of mine.

"Hi Bailey." He waved shyly, as if he was afraid of what I was going to say.

"Of course I'll be your partner, Woody." I forced a smile. It wasn't that I didn't want to be Woody's partner; it's just that he can be so weird sometimes. I often wonder how he's my friend, but he and Zack are so much alike, so it doesn't really surprise me either.

"Great, we can do our project on the consistency of cheese." Woody gushed as he moved into the chair next to me.

"Really?" I chuckled a little. "Why cheese?"

"Because it's a good snack!" Woody replied as if it was obvious.

I wasn't really paying attention to him, I was distracted by Zack and Cody going up to Ms. Tutweiller and talking to her about something that was very hush hush. And that just made me very very interested in what they were doing. I hated it when I didn't know things that people were up to, especially if I was the one that was purposely being kept out of it. It made me as mad as my Aunt Myrtle after she steps in a cow pie in bare feet.

I already thought that it was odd that Cody was working with Zack, because Cody usually refused to work with his brother. Zack usually made Cody do all of the work while he slacked off, and the only way I know this, besides seeing it first hand, was because Cody had ranted and raved to me about that for a long time.

"Excuse me for a second, Woody" I murmured before getting up from my seat and walking over to the front desk, as Zack said something to Cody and left the room. Ms. Tutweiller went back to reading the science textbook, which I could now see held a magazine in it.

Cody turned around, and jumped when he saw that I was behind him, before his face flushed and he looked nervous about something. "Bailey!" he cried and ran his fingers through his hair. "W-w-w-what did you just hear?" his voice cracked horribly and he cleared his throat loudly.

"Nothing," I replied, trying to ignore the awkward tension that filled the room. "I was just wondering what yours and Zack's project is going to be on."

"We haven't decided yet." He replied quickly. I noticed that Miss. Tutweiller looked up, an expression of confusion on her face.

"But you just told me that you and Zack were going to create your own research on-"

"No I didn't!" Cody cut in quickly. "We don't have a clue what we're going to do on our project." He turned back to me and smiled nervously as he started to back away, each step made carefully. "In fact, I'm going to go meet Zack at the computer lab." He nodded once. "Right now. Away from here." With that, he turned and ran out of the classroom.

Now that was very suspicious, even more so than their always getting into fights when we go somewhere new.

This was definitely going to need figuring out.

* * *

**A/N: Kind of a short chapter, but I'm just getting started with it. What do you guys think so far?**

**-Riley**


	3. Elementals? What Are They Talking About?

CHAPTER TWO

* * *

Cody said he was going to the computer, so that meant that he should arrive there in exactly twenty five seconds, accounting for the stop that Zack would make at the smoothie bar. The only way I know that is because of the fact that Cody always had a schedule for everything, and Zack was always eating. So that gave me enough time to sit at a computer where I could see what they were looking at, but they couldn't see me.

Zack and Cody entered the room on time, just as I had expected, and looked back and forth before moving to a computer. I ducked behind mine and slouched low in my seat, making sure that they didn't see me. Thankfully, they didn't, and they sat down at a computer screen and typed something in really fast. As a website popped up, they leaned into the computer, so I wasn't able to see what they were looking at.

I let out a big sigh and carefully moved to another seat and leaned over, trying to get a better look at it. Zack finally moved backwards, away from the computer and I could see that they were on a band website. That made absolutely no sense to me, and my reflection on the computer screen showed that I had a definite confused expression on my face.

"Why would they waste their time going on a band website?" I whispered to myself and then frowned as another thought entered my mind. "Why would Cody lie to me?"

Yeah, he did, he completely lied right to my face. Without thinking, I got up and started my way over to the twins, to confront Cody about lying to me, but something that he said, caused me to stop and dive underneath the table that was behind them, holding a hand over my mouth so they couldn't hear my breathing.

"So, they're on their way to do a concert in Madrid," Cody said quietly, his chin resting in his hand as he clicked on another link and a different part of the site opened. "I wonder if we're going to be going there soon, they may need our help."

"Cody, we know that they can handle whatever problem that gets in their way," Zack replied with a chuckle and a shake of his head. Surprisingly, he was actually using a serious tone. "It's when all of Wingz Corp is around that we have to worry about them."

"You mean worry about _her_" Cody replied with a teasing smile. Zack shrugged and smiled, not bothering to deny the accusation. This caused Cody to laugh a little bit, giving me time to regulate my breathing so I was taking loud, deep breaths.

"What girl?" I whispered to myself. "Who are they talking about?"

"Where are we headed next, anyway?" Zack asked as he leaned back in his chair, placing his arms behind his head.

"I think we're headed towards Greece," Cody replied with a yawn. "I mean, we're going to stop in some other ports first, but that's the main place we're going." He scratched his forehead. "I think I heard Moseby telling Tutweiller that we're going to stop in Italy first, to get some more supplies."

"You don't think that we're going to have to fight Koto and Reihu while we're there, do you?" Zack questioned, a serious expression sliding onto his face as he moved forward in his chair and studied his brother's face.

"I don't know," Cody replied slowly, as if he was trying to find the right words to say. "Considering that's what happened at all of the other places that we've gone, it wouldn't surprise me." He rubbed his chin. "But what I don't understand is how do they always know where we're going?"

"How do they ever know where we're going?" Zack snorted. "Knowing Wingz Corp, Core is probably watching our every move of every day of the year." He let out a heavy sigh. "We don't ever get a break and we're always putting the people that we care about in danger."

"Yeah, but that was one of the things that we had to deal with when we first found out that we were elementals," Cody replied as if he were explaining that topic all over again. "The others obviously being that we can't tell people what we are, and that we have to trust them, when the time is right, to explain everything."

"Wingz Corp?" I whispered to myself, not sure if I heard correctly. "Elementals? What are they talking about?"

"I never thought that being an elemental could be so hard," Zack muttered. "But growing up as one, it just gets harder and harder." Cody snorted.

"What happened to that brother of mine that was really excited about this?" he questioned as he typed something into the computer and a long list of Google sites appeared. "The one that was always so excited to be able to go out and fight our opponents and use his element all the time."

"He grew up a little bit," Zack replied with an amused lift to his tone. "Anyway, do you have any idea what our project is actually going to be about? Because I don't think that Miss. Tutweiller will believe us when she finds out that instead of doing our project, we were researching the history of elementals."

"Yeah, I know." Cody agreed. "Don't worry, I already have a lot of project stuff, back in my room. I just have to send Miss. Tutweiller an e-mail telling her what our project is going to be on, and when the day comes that we have to present it, you'll keep your mouth shut."

"Ok, that's simple." Zack replied and then looked up at the ceiling as a bell sounded, letting him know that class was over. "Finally, time for lunch." He stood up and stretched. "You coming?"

"Yeah," Cody closed the browser and got up behind his brother, following him out of the room.

When I was sure the coast was clear, I crawled out from underneath the table and looked around before sitting down at the computer. I opened up the web browser and moved the mouse over to the search bar and clicked at the corner. A dropdown list of recent searches appeared and I clicked my tongue, surprised that Cody didn't think of clearing his search before someone else used the computer.

I saw the two searches that he had looked at; the DarkElements band site and a search for History of Elementals.

I knew who the DarkElements were, who didn't, as they were a famous band.

But Elementals, Wingz Corp, and the history of elementals?

What was it and how did Zack and Cody get caught up in all of it?

* * *

**A/N: Ok, because this is an element story, I'm trying to decide if I should use the Jackson' Japanese names or English ones. Which do you guys think I should do? Other than that, I'm hoping you guys are enjoying this story. After this the chapters get longer.**

**-Riley**


	4. Truth is that we want to keep it a secre

CHAPTER THREE

* * *

So, what I have a least of reasons as to why Zack and Cody are in trouble; 1) they sneak off whenever we go to a different country. 2) They always come back looking beaten up. 3) Cody _never_ pairs up with Zack when it comes to doing projects and now he is. 5) When I asked him about his project, he said that he didn't have an idea, but Miss. Tutweiller said he did. 6) I found him and Zack researching something called elementals.

Ok, so most of the reasons on that list coincides with each other, but it's still weird, you've gotta admit that it's weird. I mean, it's a week after our projects were assigned and Zack and Cody were acting even more suspicious. I've asked Woody, Marcus, and London if they had noticed anything was different. Marcus had noticed that they were acting a little bit more distant than they usually were, and he didn't hear Moseby yelling at Zack as much. Woody was kind of sad because he was bored; he and Zack usually got into schemes together and now that Zack was acting distant, there really wasn't much that he could do besides eat. And London…was London she somehow found a way to change the conversation to an insult to use against me.

I really should have seen it coming.

Anyway, we're docking in Venice, Italy today before we continue on to Greece, and Miss. Tutweiller is giving us time to explore the city a little bit. I knew that today was going to be the day that something was going to happen. I don't know how and I can't really explain it, but I knew that something weird was going to happen today.

"So, what do you guys want to do when we get to Venice?" I asked my friends as we sat on the sky deck.

"How about we-"

"London, not all of us can afford to go shopping." I interrupted before she could use her annoying 'go shopping' voice. Just like she always did whenever we got to a new country. Don't get me wrong, I can buy souvenirs and stuff because of the money that I had saved up. But that didn't mean that I didn't get jealous because London could buy whatever clothes she wanted.

"Well, let's just walk around and see what we can find," Marcus suggested as he leaned back in his chair. "Why do we always have to schedule things?"

"Because schedules make for a happy person," Cody explained, sounding more like himself. He even seemed more excited to be going to Venice. "I mean, if you have schedules then you can get your work done on time and leave time for being able to do what you want." He beamed. "If I didn't have a schedule for my school work, I wouldn't be able to do Advanced Differential Equations."

"You call that fun?" Zack asked as he looked at his twin brother with raised eyebrows."I have more fun picking off my scabs, and those hurt."

I made a face of disgust as I tried to ignore the rush of nausea. It shouldn't have surprised me, Zack was never one to be tactful and he didn't really care if he grossed people out, it was just the way that he was…when he wasn't vain or trying to pick up girls.

"Well, at least Bailey understands how Advanced Differential Equations can be." Cody stated and beamed over at me; I couldn't help but smile back. But I still knew that he had lied to me and that he was hiding something.

"Yeah, you two make such a great couple," London replied, barely hiding her boredom as she walked off.

* * *

"Hey Marcus, come check out these CD's!" I called as I picked up a case of some popular Italian singer in my hand. I knew that Marcus would be immediately interested, as he was the famous rapper Lil' Little. And he loved anything that had to do with music.

"What kind of music is this?" Marcus asked as he made a face, listening to the music that was blaring over the through the store.

"I think it's beautiful," I stated as I smiled and gently swayed to the music. "It's really something that you could listen to whenever you wanted."

"Yeah yeah, but what they need is a little taste of Lil' Little." Marcus replied as he blew on his knuckles and rubbed them across his chest. I rolled my eyes as I watched him walk off to try and talk to the manager of the store. I know that he didn't know Italian so that would be interesting. But it was also the fact that he did this in every country that we went to that also made it kind of annoying.

But Marcus is a sweet person and will do anything for his friends. He fit into our weird group pretty easily. London was nowhere to be found, probably getting some original Giorgio Armani stuff from Giorgio Armani himself. It wouldn't surprise me at all, the only good thing is that London gives me some of the clothes that are last season or that she doesn't want. She says that she's helping me get rid of my 'ridiculous-clown-looking-farm-clothes'. But I like to think of it in a less insulting way, trying to help boost my self-esteem. Because London's comments can really hurt sometimes.

"Hey, where are Zack and Cody?" I asked out loud, not realizing that they weren't with us. Neither was Woody for that matter. Some Italians looked at me with odd expressions on their faces and I quickly made a face of apology before leaving the little shop and looking around. I spotted Woody walking towards me, snacking on some pastry thing. "Hey, Woody, have you seen Zack and Cody?"

"Yeah, they're right behind me, we stopped to get something to eat," Woody replied as he motioned behind him with his shoulder, still shoving the pastry into his mouth.

I looked over Woody's shoulder and saw that he was right. But as I watched, Zack and Cody stopped walking and stiffened suddenly, as if they had heard something and looked around nervously, but also looked like they were expecting it too.

"Hey guys, we have to go and….find a gift for mom," Zack stated, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder as Cody nodded in agreement. "So we'll just meet you guys back at the boat later. I mean, you don't want to wait around for us while we shop."

"I'll come with you guys." I offered as I started to walk towards them. Zack's face was clear, but Cody's looked scared and impatient. "I mean," I giggled a little bit to ease the tension that was in the air. "You're going to need a woman's touch aren't you?"

"Not really," Zack smiled and slapped his brother on the shoulder. "Cody already acts like a girl and he's sensitive to their feelings and stuff," he rolled his eyes. "So we don't really need your help. So you should just go away. Right now."

"Zack!" Cody hissed.

"What's going on?" I demanded, crossing my arms over my chest and staring right at Cody, knowing that he hated to lie.

"Trust is, Bailey, we…uh, we," Cody started to snap his fingers, as if that would help him remember what he was trying to say. "Truth is that we want to keep it a total and complete surprise, even from you! You know how our mom and dad just came to the SS Tipton randomly last time? I wouldn't want that to happen again while we're talking about her gift."

"Oh," I replied as I slowly lowered my arms and gave an understanding smile. "Yeah, I understand, go on ahead."

"Thanks Bailey," Cody patted my shoulder gently before turning around and walked away, with Zack at his side. "We'll meet you guys back at the ship later."

"Later!" Woody called through a full mouth. I winced as some of the pastry that was in his mouth splattered on my face. "Oops, sorry Bailey."

"It's ok, Woody." I replied sarcastically as I gently wiped at my face. "If you wanted to share the pastry with me, you should have at least asked me first." When I was done clearing off my face I saw Zack and Cody running back down the street and disappeared around the corner.

Now that was really odd, as there were no shops over there that we could afford anything from. And the only way that I knew that was because of the fact that it had taken London hours to get out of that district before finding Giorgio Armani and going off with him.

I was too suspicious of everything that was going to listen to the part of me that was yelling for me not to go off after them. In Venice there were a lot of stories of people being mugged and having their things stolen, but right now I didn't care. I just wanted to find out what Zack and Cody were hiding from us, their friends.

"Woody, what shop did you get that from?" I asked, turning to the curly haired boy. He carelessly pointed over his shoulder. I nodded and turned and ran down the street after Zack and Cody, not caring is Woody saw that I wasn't actually going into the bakery.

I _had_ to find out what was going on.

I ran aimlessly down the street, taking random turns that went down even more empty streets and over a bridge where I saw a gondola gently moving across the canal. It was weird, I didn't know where I was going, but, I felt that I did know. It was like my body was telling me that what I was doing was the right thing.

_It's Time…_

I skidded to a stop and looked around in confusion. I could have sworn that I just heard someone say that, but there was no one around. It was then that I realized that I was in a random alleyway, not sure what was going on. I jumped and screamed at the sound of someone crashing into trashcans. Turning around, I saw a blonde haired boy dressed in a black leather jacket, a white t-shirt, and dark blue jeans hauling himself to his feet. A smaller boy with brown hair and wearing a simple t-shirt and jeans suddenly appeared beside him; both of them were glaring up towards the sky.

I tilted my head back and gasped as Zack and Cody jumped off of the roof of the building that was to my right and landed on the ground, on their feet, as if the fall didn't hurt them.

'_That's impossible_' I thought to myself, eyes wide with shock. '_No one can jump from that high without breaking their bones and being in extreme pain. What's going on_?'

"You have nowhere else t go, Koto" Zack snarled as he and Cody slowly moved forward, hands clenched into fists at their sides. "So you might as well give up now."

"Koto?" I whispered, instantly recognizing the so0und.

"Heh," the blonde boy flicked his head to the side, clenching his hands into fists too as he sank into a fighting stance. "You're mistaken if you think that you'll get the best of me that easily." Cody chuckled.

"We've beaten you before, we can surely do it again." He called with a hint of cockiness.

"We'll see about that," the smaller boy replied before charging towards Cody, his hands outstretched. It was then that I noticed that his nails were longer and sharper than finger nails usually were. "Hiya!"

Cody lay down on his back and brought his feet up as the smaller boy dove at him. Using his feet, Cody brought his legs up towards his face, using the force to throw the little boy behind him and onto the ground. Koto sighed as he rubbed his face.

"Reihu, how many times do I or Core have to tell you, make sure that you wait for your opponent to make the _first move_?" Koto stated as he placed his hands on his hips.

"Don't worry, I can get him!" Reihu replied bravely, as he easily flipped back to his feet. I gasped a little bit and his head whipped around towards me. "Hey, who's this!" he called.

Zack whirled around and his eyes widened when he saw me. Cody turned around and didn't look surprised at all.

What the hell was going on?

* * *

**So what did you guys think of this chapter? Now its getting to the point and Bailey knows that something is _definitely_ going on. But why did Zack look surprised about Bailey being there and Cody not? If you really want to know you'll review because reviews makes me update faster. Thanks for reading! ^-^**

**-Riley  
**


	5. They will kill us to get what they want

CHAPTER FOUR

* * *

I couldn't move.

I could even think straight.

I could only watch as Reihu moved closer and closer to me. Right before my eyes, his green eyes changed from one that was a human to cat-like eyes. And as he smirked, his canines grew longer, and his hands and feet turned into paws as a long tail appeared behind him.

"Leave her alone!"

Reihu merely snorted at Cody's outburst and continued towards me. I backed up as far as I could until I hit a brick wall, and cowered in fear. I closed my eyes, waiting for pain to come, or even the feeling of his paws grabbing onto my arm, but nothing happened. I heard the sound of a cat wailing and hissing in fury and opened my eyes to see that Reihu was soaked from head to toe, his clothes dripping water.

Reihu snarled and whipped his head back around to face Cody. I got up to my knees, still hiding behind a trash bin, and gasped when I saw that in place of Cody's arm was a watery tentacle. Cody looked annoyed, but uncaring at the same time.

I looked behind him and saw that Koto was inching closer and closer to Zack, his hand stretched out, nails gleaming.

"Zack! Watch out!" I shouted, getting his attention.

Without turning around, Zack balanced on his left foot, and shoved his right leg backwards, hitting Koto in the stomach and sending him back a few feet and into a brick wall. Koto pulled himself out of the wall, as if he had landed in a pile of pillows.

Before I knew it, Zack, Cody, Reihu, and Koto were in an all out brawl. But to make it even weirder, the faster they moved, I could have sworn that they started to glow. And I don't mean like they have a healthy glow, but actually glowing. Zack and Cody were glowing red and blue, respectively, and it was weird to see. The weirdest part was what came at the end of the fight.

Koto punched Zack across the face and the blonde boy stumbled back, holding onto his jaw. He quickly wiped the blood from his chin and sank into a fighting stance. His hands started to flow red and as the light got brighter and brighter I realized that the red light was turning into flames. Before it could even register in my mind what was happening, Zack's entire right arm was covered in flames. But Zack wasn't reacting to it at all, as if he wasn't being burned.

He shoved his arm forward with the cry of "Fire Ball, Ignite!" And a wheel of flame rushed out towards Koto. Koto quickly jumped into the air, turned completely into a wolf, and landed behind Zack. He pulled his lips back and snarled at Zack before taking off down the street.

"Tsunami Wave!" Cody's arms were glowing blue. He raised his arms over his head, and I heard a gurgling sound behind me. Turning around, I saw the water from the canal rising high in the air, creating a large wave. "Water Whip!" The large wave condensed into a long thing line of water and as Cody snapped his arm down, it rushed towards Reihu.

Like Koto, Reihu jumped over the water, turned into a lion, and disappeared down the street.

Zack and Cody wiped their hands off on their pants before turning towards me. Cody walked over to me and gently pulled me to my feet as Zack looked around, eyes wide with worry. "Codes, what's she doing here?" Zack whispered to Cody, not so subtly. "No one is supposed to know-"

"Don't worry about it now, Zack." Cody replied as he finally turned to look at his brother. "We have to get back to the SS Tipton before it leaves without us." He turned back to me. "Are you ok, Bailey?"

"W-What was-"I stammered, trying to find my words to ask the burning questions on my mind.

"Don't worry about that now," Zack butted in. "I think we may have attracted some more," he looked over at me before turning back to Cody. "_Unwanted_ attention. We have to leave. _Now_."

"Got it." Cody replied and grabbed onto my wrist. "C'mon, Bailey!"

* * *

"Bailey. Psst. Bailey, wake up!"

Groaning, I looked over at my clock and saw that it was only 12:10 in the morning. Annoyed, I turned back to the person that was standing by my bed. I was getting ready to curse him out, in the way that we do it back home, before I realized that Zack was standing by my bed. I immediately shut up and wanted to listen to what he had to say.

Ever since we had gotten back on the boat, Zack and Cody hadn't talked about the incident at all. They just stayed quiet. During dinner they didn't say a word to me. They just kept on eating and eating and talked to the guys. At the time I thought that they were trying to make me forget the whole thing, and I even tried that myself. But there's no possible way that you could forget someone being able to shoot fire out of his hands. Or someone being able to turn into a wolf. Or someone being able to jump to the ground from the roof of a nearby building and not getting hurt at all. It was all that I could think about. Even going to sleep, I had a dream of Zack and Cody fighting someone, or something really bad. I couldn't see what it was, but I could tell that it was something very important to them.

"Zack, what is it?" I finally asked, swinging my legs to the floor and glancing back to make sure that London didn't wake up.

"C'mon, we don't have much time." Zack replied before turning away and leaving the room. I quickly followed after him. He led us through many hallways and many turns, and I wasn't even sure where we were going. (And that was saying something as I studied the whole map of the boat for fun when I was waiting for figure out whether or not I had been accepted to Seven Seas High.)

"Where are we going?" I finally asked.

"Don't worry, we're almost there." Zack replied, not looking over his shoulder. We continued walking down towards the bottom of the boat for about another ten minutes before Zack came to a complete stop in front of a door that was hidden by a stack of boxes and lightly rapped on the door. The door opened and Zack slid inside, glancing back over his shoulder one more time before beckoning me inside. "You owe me big time for this, bro," Zack was saying as I entered the small room. Cody closed the door behind me and walked over to a couch that was in one of the corners of the room. "If Moseby caught me then I would be in really big trouble, and I can't afford to miss anymore days of work."

"Yeah, yeah." Cody rolled his eyes and turned to me. "It's a good thing that you came here, Bailey. There's a lot of stuff that we need to explain to you."

"What was going on?" I demanded, placing my hands on my hips. "Who were those people? And why did you-"

"If you'd let us explain this would all go by much faster, toots." Zack replied and defended himself when Cody glanced over at him. "What? I'm tired! And she wasn't supposed to find out about this anyway."

"Actually, she was." Cody replied as he crossed his arms over his chest. He continued to have a conversation with his brother as if I wasn't even there. "I had a dream, recently. And in my dream it said that soon there was going to be someone that was going to find out about us, that would be a good friend and be really helpful."

"Why is it that you had the dream?" Zack demanded, sounding like he was joking. "Usually whenever we have dreams that have to do with our elements, we share one." Cody shrugged in reply.

"I don't know how it works," he admitted. "And neither do you for that matter. But I knew that the dream was talking about Bailey as soon as she had demanded what our science project was going to be about." He said and finally turned to look at me. "I bet you're wondering what this all means."

"Uh, yeah, I'm kinda in the dark here." I replied, starting to become annoyed with being ignored and having none of my questions answered.

"Ok, I'll answer the first and easiest question to answer," Cody replied and flopped down onto the couch next to Zack, motioning for me to take the chair that was across from the couch. I sat down and pulled my legs up into the chair, trying to get comfortable as I knew that it would take a while for this to be explained. "The reason that I wasn't really surprised with you being in the alleyway is because I knew that you would be there; because of the dream and because I purposely left my search on my computer uncleaned."

"You _did_ that?" Zack demanded and slapped his hands over his face. "I can't believe you would be so stupid! _Anyone _could have seen that!"

"No, only I did." I replied, trying to keep the tension down. "I cleared the history right after I was at the computer."

"Ok, here's the other thing that's going to be really hard for you to understand," Cody paused and looked over at Zack, as if he was asking for help. Zack sighed and rubbed his forehead before leaning forward, clasping his hands together.

"Cody and I…we aren't human." Zack explained his eyes boring into mine. "We're Elementals. And the things that we did with fire and water, that was real." He took a breath. "I hold the element of fire and Cody holds the element of water."

"And those two guys, Koto and Reihu, they're after us," Cody jumped in. "But they're not the only ones who are. There's a whole group of people who are trying to capture us, to get rid of our elements, and they _will_ kill us to get what they want."

"But…" I was so confused. "How did all of this happen?"

"That's going to take a while to explain." Zack hesitated.

I got comfortable in my chair.

"I have time."

* * *

**A/N: And now the adventure starts. I hope you guys liked this chapter. Thanks to **_JDTB90, tiger002, MysticMelody101, _, _and owlhero_ **for reviewing! Next chapter will be up soon.**

**-Riley  
**


	6. I thought it was you

Chapter Five

* * *

"Oh my god."

That was all I could say after the boys had finished their long tale. I couldn't believe it. They have had these powers since they were thirteen and have kept it a secret for three long years along with the other elementals that they had met. They have been chased and wanted to be killed by an organization so big that they didn't know if there was another branch of it. I couldn't believe it at all.

"That's all you can say?" Zack stated as he looked at me with a raised eyebrow. "Oh my god?" he repeated in a voice I guess he thought sounded like mine. I ignored his tone as I shook my head back and forth, thinking about what they had just told me.

It made a lot of sense as to why they were always taking off and disappearing for a while.

"I don't get it," I stated after a second of silence. "Why are they only targeting you?"

"I thought I had explained that," Cody blushed a little bit out of embarrassment. "At first they were targeting our friends because they were known as the strongest elementals of our generation, but when our powers awakened," he motioned to himself and Zack. "It became apparent to them that we were the strongest ones." He ran his fingers through his hair. He must have seen the confused look on my face as he smiled sympathetically. "This must be really hard for you to digest, why don't you just go to bed and we'll talk about this again tomorrow?"

"Yeah, sure." I muttered in reply as I got up from the chair and made my way back to my cabin.

London was snoring as peacefully as usual, saying little things like 'daddy' and 'money' so that let me know that she was completely dead asleep. Being as quiet as possible, I closed the door behind me, made my way to my bed, and slid under the covers. As soon as my head hit the pillow I was out like a light.

* * *

"Hey Bailey."

I turned away from the juice bar and saw Marcus sitting at one of the tables on the Sky Deck, staring right into a laptop screen, sitting so close that I was sure that he was going to go cross-eyed. I giggled a little bit as I walked over to my friend and sat down at the table.

"Hey Marcus." I greeted him as I sat down at the table. I looked around, looking for Zack and Cody but didn't see them. "Hey, have you seen Zack and Cody anywhere?"

"No," Marcus replied, barely looking up from his laptop. "I haven't seen Zack, surprisingly when I woke up he was already out of the room." He finally looked away from his laptop. "What do you think of this? Lil' Little's website where when you sign up for a membership you get free posters?"

"Marcus, how many fans do you still have?" I questioned as gently as possible. As Marcus started to ramble about the people that still liked him, I noticed that it didn't seem like he was going to stop any time soon. So I just got up and started to back away as slowly as possible, still looking for Zack and Cody.

I wanted to ask if what they told me really happened, because I had the feeling that I had dreamt the whole thing. I searched everywhere for Zack and Cody and couldn't find them, I even searched in the infirmary. Sometimes Cody went there to check up on the nurse's stock of antibiotics and other stuff, just in case. (Sometimes I think he was a borderline germaphobe.) Finally I went back to the room that they had been in last night and found them there.

The two of them were breathing heavily, sitting on the ground, hair matted with sweat. They both had their shirts off and I blushed a little bit, noticing it. But I had seen them in the pool, so I don't know why it made a difference this time. They looked up as I entered the room.

"Hey Bailey," they greeted in unison, causing me to smile a little bit as they don't harmonize that often.

"Hey guys." I gave a small wave before dropping into the chair, tucking my legs underneath my body. "What's up?"

"We were just practicing." Cody replied as he took as swig out of his water bottle.

I wrinkled my eyebrows in confusion. "Practicing?" I repeated. "Practicing what?" I looked around the room and saw that a few of the furniture looked like it was charred, but with the dim lighting, I couldn't tell.

"Uh," Zack rubbed his nose as he stood up, stretching a little bit, looking back at Cody. The two of them seemed to have a silent conversation before Zack spoke up again. "We were practicing hand to hand combat and our elements."

"Oh," I replied, feeling slightly taken aback. '_Oh come on Bailey,_' I thought to myself as I shook my head. '_That definitely wasn't a dream. A dream about your friends having elements doesn't happen to everyone. This is reality_.' I scolded myself. "Can I see?"

Wordlessly, Cody crouched down in front of me, balancing on his raised feet, and his water bottle in one hand. As I watched, his hand glowed blue and he waved it over the top of the bottle, a long line of water rose up out of the bottle and when Cody moved his hand back down, the water went back down into the bottle. I looked over at Zack and his hand glowed red as he held his hand out. Before my eyes, a fireball appeared over his hand, hovering in the air. He juggled it back and forth between his hands, it growing bigger each time, and then it hovered over one hand again. He closed his hand and the fireball extinguished.

"Wow," I blinked and smiled a little. "Is that all you can do?"

"In a room like this, pretty much." Zack replied with a low laugh. "We don't want to set off any alarms and get Moseby down here."

"He doesn't know about your…powers?" I asked, fumbling over the word. It was weird to say to people who you once thought were regular humans.

"I think he suspects it," Cody replied as he stepped back, rocking on his heels and then aimed a punch at Zack's jaw. I winced and started to warn Zack, but he quickly moved his head to the side and grabbed onto Cody's wrist, his brother's fingers inches from his face. Cody chuckled as he pulled his arm back, flicking his head so his hair moved out of his face. "You've gotten faster."

"So have you." Zack agreed.

"What?" I questioned. I was sure that they were just going to start attacking each other.

"Being an elemental you have a guardian," Cody explained quickly. "And your guardian is an animal and with your guardian you take the abilities from it and use it on your own. Zack's and my guardian's are eagles and we can sense the wind change."

"What else can you do as an elemental?" I asked eagerly. I always loved to learn new things, and this was definitely new and interesting.

"Every elemental is much stronger than a normal human," Zack explained. "We can run faster, and we can withstand more pain. Plus we can sense when another elemental or someone with a dark energy is getting closer." He added and then stiffened as he tilted his head to the side. "Kind of like I can feel it now."

"I thought it was just me." Cody replied, looking confused. "But Koto and them wouldn't be that stupid about attacking the boat with so many witnesses."

"So who could it be?" Zack replied.

I sat back in my chair, watching as they tried to figure out who it was. Funny enough, I could actually feel something. Like there was some sort of big presence that was coming closer and closer. But that didn't make any sense to me, I wasn't an elemental, at least, I didn't have anything that Zack and Cody had.

So why could I feel something?

There was an odd knock on the door. Two knocks, a scratch, and then another two knocks. Zack immediately came to life and surged towards the door. I looked over at Cody and he was staring at the door expectantly, as if that kind of knock was a signal. I turned to look at Zack and he had the door swung open, but was standing in a way that I couldn't see who was there.

"I thought it was you." Zack stated, grinning.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry this was a shorter chapter and sorry it took a bit to be updated. I was working on my Big Time Rush stories for a while. But I hope you guys liked this chapter, the next one will be up soon.**


	7. Boston isn't safe anymore

CHAPTER SIX

* * *

"Max! Tapeworm!" Cody cried in excitement, the biggest grin that Bailey had ever seen on his face. He rushed forward and gave the girl and the boy a hug before letting go and letting them enter the room, closing the door behind them.

"What are you guys doing here?" Zack asked as he turned and leaned against the door. He wasn't smiling, and if it wasn't for Zack giving them a hug before they entered the room, I would have thought that he wasn't happy to see them at all. But as I studied Zack's face, I could see that he was worried about something.

"We got on the ship as soon as we heard some interesting news." Max replied as she brushed her long wavy brown hair out of her face before noticing Bailey. "Dude, who's this?"

"Is this your girlfriend, Cody?" Tapeworm asked as he turned and grinned at his friend. I smiled a little as Cody blushed and started to babbly something intelligent, but it wasn't working. So I decided to speak up and help him.

"Hi," I thrust my hand out towards the two of them. "I'm Bailey Pickett."

"Nice to meet you," Tapeworm grabbed my hand and shook it vigorously. "I'm Tapeworm and this is my girlfriend, Max."

"Girlfriend?" Zack looked interested as he raised an eyebrow. He turned to Max and pointed a finger back and forth between the two of them. "You two are dating?" he looked genuinely interested, but I could also tell that he was a little annoyed. "Since when?"

"Hey, you hang around someone for a while and your feelings start to change." Max replied with a shrug, as if it wasn't important. She looked at him intently, as if she was trying to tell him something and Zack's eyes flashed with anger before he opened his mouth.

"So, your name is actually Tapeworm?" I asked as I turned to the curly headed boy, trying to change the subject as quickly as possible. He must have noticed, for he smiled and chuckled a bit before replying.

"Actually, my name is Christopher," he replied and I smiled. I always liked that name. "My nickname is Tapeworm because I can eat twenty hotdogs in two minutes."

"Well, you should see," I laughed a little. "Back at Kettlecorn, my family holds the record of being able to eat the most coleslaw in a minute." I sighed as I remembered everything that had been going on back home at Kettlecorn. "You should have seen it," I giggled fondly. "Mayonnaise and lettuce chunks flying around and that was just from Porkers."

"You don't get out much do you?" Max asked after a second of silence.

I wasn't sure what she meant by that, but it couldn't have been that good. Sure, Kettlecorn was a really small town, and there really wasn't much to do. I mean, the internet just got there so that's what my grandmother and my sisters were on all the time. But I had fun going into town sometimes. But as time went on, I realized that I had wanted to go out and see the world and that's where my application for the SS Tipton came in.

I shouldn't have been offended, as I had heard people saying stuff like that a lot, but I couldn't help it.

"Not to start another war here," Cody raised his hands, trying to get everyone's attention before he gave Max and Tapeworm his full attention. "Why did you guys leave Boston?" Max and Tapeworm looked at each other in hesitation before looking over at me. "Don't worry, she knows everything."

"Everything?" Max repeated, looking skeptical.

"Well, not everything," I replied quickly. "I don't understand a lot of things about this elemental stuff, but I'm smart, I can get it." I don't know why I was pleading with them; I guess I didn't really want to be left out.

"Are you sure?" Tapeworm didn't look skeptical, he just seemed genuinely concerned. "We don't want you to get hurt of anything." Max muttered something under her breath and Tapeworm elbowed her in the side, sharply.

"Guys, you can trust, Bailey." Cody replied firmly. "I do."

"That doesn't mean that Riley, Rhuben, or Crystal will." Max pointed out as she raised an eyebrows.

"Well, there's not here right now." Cody replied sharply. I had never heard him speak to anyone like that before and it let me know that what was going on was serious, and that it really wasn't a joke or a dream. "We have to know, what's going on back at Boston."

"Boston isn't safe anymore." Max replied grimly.

"What about mom and dad?" Zack demanded, finally moving away from the door and grabbing on to her shoulders. "Are they ok? Have you gone and visited them?"

"Relax," Tapeworm gently pushed his friend back. "Your mom and dad are fine, you didn't let Max finish." He smiled. "We did what you asked and checked on your mom and dad a lot, up until recently at least. Koto and Reihu are following you guys around, we know that. But Caos and Kuroko are still back at Boston, trying to hold down the fort there and see if there are any elementals that they can capture there."

"What happened?" Cody asked, he had an expression of horror on his face.

"They were following us around for a while," Tapeworm replied with a heavy sigh. "To the Tipton when we would go see your mom and Maddie, and when we went to see your dad. They didn't do a lot when people were around, but soon they didn't care and started attacking us whenever we got the chance." He shook his head. "I don't like the idea of that, it means that there's something that they're trying to keep us from finding out about."

"So why don't you just get the information from them?" I suggested after hearing their story. Max snorted.

"So what do you expect us to do, princess?" Max sneered as she rolled her eyes. (I don't think she's much of a people's person. "Just waltz up to them and say 'hey, what's up? Can you tell me why you're distracting us'?"

"Whoever said that you needed to ask them to their face?" I asked as I tilted my head to the side.

"You have a plan?" Zack asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.

I snorted as I brushed my hair behind my shoulders. "If I can build a self-energizing robot that will recognize voice patterns _and_ can cook a mean steak by scratch, then I can make a plan."

I smiled as the thoughts already formed in my head.

* * *

**A/N: Story picks up after this chapter. I hope you enjoyed it.**


	8. Bailey, don't!

CHAPTER SEVEN

* * *

"What's the plan?" Zack demanded as soon as I started to smile. I took a step back, afraid of the serious look on his face.

"I-I," I stammered, rubbing my neck. "I don't have the actually idea _yet_, I'm still thinking of it."

"Well, think _faster_!" Zack snapped.

"Zack," Cody placed a hand on his brother's chest and glared at him, shaking his head. "You can't rush her, when it comes to things like this; it takes a while to think out."

"But I need to know what's going on, so mom and dad are safe." Zack replied desperately. That explains why he was mad. He was worried about his mom and his dad and he wanted to make sure that he could help them as soon as possible.

"I promise Zack," I turned and grabbed onto his hands, looking into his eyes pleadingly. "I'll work as hard as I can so I can help you find your mom and dad and make sure that they're safe"

"Well, you're going to have to work fast, princess." Max replied as she walked over to the two of us, gently pushing Zack away from me with her shoulder. "Because these people that attacked you while you were snooping in on something that you shouldn't have, they don't give up."

"I'm aware of that." I replied as I crossed my arms over my chest.

"Then start thinking!"

"Max!" Cody sounded exasperated. He let out a growl and ran his hands over his face before turning to Tapeworm. "Find a place to stay and I'll catch up to you guys."

"Got it," Tapeworm replied before grabbing onto Max's arm and leaving the room, Zack following behind them. Cody turned and looked at me apologetically.

"Sorry about her, Max is really hard to get to trust someone." Cody apologized as he brushed his hair out of his face. "I'm working on her attitude, although Tapeworm has helped a lot." He smiled before turning serious. "In their own, rude way, Zack and Max are right. It would be better if you could come up with the plan sooner rather than later. I really want to make sure that my parents are safe."

"I get it Cody," I placed a hand on his arm and smiled at him. "And I'll work as hard as I can, I promise."

"Thank You, Bailey."

* * *

"So you can stay here with me and London," I said to Max as I showed her my cabin. I had to move London's and my beds around so there was enough space for Max's cot.

"Are you sure that the air head is going to be fine with me staying here?" Max asked as she raised her eyebrows, looking around the room as she slowly stepped inside.

"I doubt she would even notice," I replied waving away the thought. "I mean, she's so busy looking at herself in the mirror that it wouldn't surprise me if she didn't remember that I lived here myself."

"Who could forget?" Max murmured as she looked over at all of the farm stuff that I had used to decorate my side of the room.

"Oh, there you are." Max and I turned around as Tapeworm stuck his head into the room before moving into the room, dropping one of Max's bags onto the ground. "Zack and Cody said that if we're going to be getting some tests done we should eat first." He smiled. "And I already looked at the buffet and saw that they have plenty of hotdogs."

"I'm there, dude." Max replied with a warm smile. "Let me just put up some of my stuff first."

"Let me help," I offered as I moved forward. "That way you can get it done faster."

"That's a good idea, Max." Tapeworm replied as he looked at his girlfriend sharply. I pretended not to notice as I grabbed the bag that he had dropped by the door and dragged it over to her cot, and opened it to start pulling out some clothes.

"Which bag was that?" Max suddenly asked Tapeworm, sounding alarmed.

"Uhhh"

"Bailey, don't!"

I screamed and fell back on my butt as something shot up towards my face and out of the bag…


	9. Why am I not an elemental?

CHAPTER EIGHT

Why am I Not an Elemental?

* * *

I dove to the ground and held my hands over my head as Tapeworm reacted quickly and grabbed the thing that had darted towards my face. He scooped it up into his arms and handed it back to Max before grabbing onto my arms and pulling me off of the ground.

"It's ok Bailey, you don't have to be afraid." He stated and moved around me to look into the bag before pulling something out himself. "See?" I turned towards him and saw a small bear sitting in Tapeworm's arms. I looked over at Max and saw that she was holding a small dog in her arms.

"Aww, so cute." I gushed and then looked closer, seeing that they both had strange marking on them, and it looked like they also had plates of armor on. "But…why do they look so funny?"

"Mistress," the dog in Max's arms suddenly spoke and I jumped backwards out of shock. "Who is this?" It moved forward and sniffed the air. "She doesn't smell like someone we know." It sniffed again. "She smells like…cow pies."

"Uh yeah," I rubbed the back of my neck sheepishly. "I grew up on a farm and-"I paused, when the realization that the dog just talked got to me. "Wait!" I pointed at it. "It talked, how could it talk? It's a dog!"

"Not exactly," Tapeworm replied and smiled a little. "Zack and Cody told you that every elemental has a guardian right?"

"Uh-huh" I nodded shortly.

"These are our guardians," Tapeworm smiled and held his arms out. The small bear in his arms raised a paw and waved it back and forth. "This is my guardian Ursa."

"And this is my guardian Canis." Max added and set the dog on the ground. She stood up and brushed her hair out of her face. "What exactly did Zack and Cody tell you about guardians?" I thought about it, wrinkling my nose as I looked towards the ceiling.

"Um," I looked at the two of them as I remembered. "Just that your guardian is an animal that protects you, that you take some of the abilities from that animal, and that every elemental has one." I shrugged. "That's pretty much it.

"Oh, then, there's something else that you need to know, such as they can talk." Tapeworm spoke up.

"I think she's figured that out by now, dude." Max replied and then took over the explanation. "Each guardian has three different forms, the small form, their normal animal form, and their human form." She held up three fingers as she explained. "We can't tell you how and why it happens, it just does, and your guardian is linked to you, so that if you die, they die, but it doesn't work vice versa, not exactly anyway."

"Three…forms?" I repeated.

Max sighed and rubbed her forehead, muttering something under her breath as she motioned towards Canis. Canis looked up at her and nodded before there was a flash of light. I shielded my eyes and saw that there was now a young girl, about the age of thirteen, standing next to Max. She still had some of the weird markings on her cheeks, and she had a playful look in her eyes, like a dog. Other than that, she looked normal. There was another flash of light and when it faded the girl was now a full sized Dog, but it was bigger than the normal dog. Another flash of light and she was back to the small size.

"The three forms that our guardians have are helpful when we're trying to get them to blend into society." Max continued. "And they stop growing physically in their early twenties, but they do still grow older."

"Guardians typically 'live' inside you," he used air quotes around the word. "But other times they stay out in the open so we can talk to them. It's just a simple way to have them be around and not be caught." Tapeworm added and then smiled as he rubbed his hands together. "But we can go into all of that when we're taking our tests, right now we need to eat."

"You're such a typical guy, Tape." Max sighed as she shook her head, placing her hands on her hips. "Always thinking about food whenever something gets really interesting."

"I know," Tapeworm turned and smiled at her. "But you love me anyway." His smile grew wider as Max blushed, and the turned to me. "You live on this boat, where's the best place to get something to eat?"

"Uh," I blinked at the sudden subject change. "Either on the sky deck or on the fiesta deck, they have _great_ nachos."

"Nachos?" Tapeworms'' eyes lit up and he started to bounce up and down out of excitement. "Forget the hotdogs, let's get some nachos!" He pulled the bag that was around his shoulders out and Ursa slipped inside before he turned and hurried out of the room. Max rolled her eyes before grabbing a bag to put Canis in before turning to me.

"I'm sure that you're going to need to show us around," she stated before leaving the room.

I nodded slowly and followed her as we hurried to catch up to Tapeworm and I led them to the fiesta deck. It didn't surprise me that Max was being hostile to me and I could understand why. She had been hanging out with Zack and Cody for a long time when they were back in Boston, and now that they've been on the ship for a long time, it's taking her a bit to get over the fact that they had gotten new friends. But from what Cody had told me, I know that she used to like Zack, and being here with her new boyfriend around him, an old friend of his, was probably making him really tense.

But what I couldn't wrap my head around was how complicated this whole elemental thing was. It sounded simple at first, as it explained a lot of reasons why Zack and Cody were disappearing, but it also just made more questions arise. And these were questions that I knew that the guys definitely couldn't answer for me. And I had a few questions myself.

Like; what made it that some people were elementals and who weren't?

What decided what animal guardian you got?

What decided what element you got?

And most importantly…Why am I not an elemental?

* * *

"Ok, so these tests are the procedure tests that we took back home but they're going to be a little different as we don't have the same equipment." Cody stated as she looked away from the clipboard that was in his hands. We were all in the SS Tipton's gym, Cody had a stack of clipboards that held a lot of complicated looking figures on them, and Zack had made sure that no one else was going to be in the room.

"So that means that we're going to have to do the bets that we can on these treadmills and stuff." Zack added as he waved his hand around the room. He crossed his arms over his chest. "Uh, Tape, you and I will start on weight lifting, and Max and Cody can start on the treadmill."

"What about me?" I questioned as I raised an eyebrow.

"Um," Cody bit his lower lip before walking over to me, holding out a clipboard. "I think that it would be best if you helped me fill out these charts and write down the results of the tests."

"Because I'm not an elemental." I replied with a nod, feeling a little offended.

"No," Cody quickly replied, shaking his head as his eyes grew wide. "It's because I know that you're very smart and that you can easily help me with the charts and the figures and stuff."

"Right," I nodded and took a clipboard. "I get it." I forced a smile as I brushed some hair behind my ear. "Let's get started then."

"Great," Cody beamed and moved over to the benches along with Tapeworm. The two sat down and lied on their backs as they reached up and gently placed their hands on the barbells "So, just start by recording how much weight Tape and I bench press and then go over to Max and Zack and record how fast they're running."

"But," I hesitated while looking over the barbells. "Those have all of the weight on them; don't you think that it'll be a little heavy?" Tapeworm and Cody just chuckled and I shrugged and waited for them to start.

After a small countdown, Cody and Tapeworm easily moved the barbells off of the top of the bench and started to bench press them. My mouth fell open as I watched, as it was obvious from the looks on their faces that the weights that they were holding were way too easy. They were moving them up and down so fast that I almost forgot that I was supposed to be recording how much they were bench pressing.

I hurried over to the side of the contraption and mentally counted how much they were weight, about 400 pounds!

"I told you before that elementals are stronger than humans." Cody stated, as if he could read my mind.

"I'm assuming that the same thing goes for being able to run really fast." I commented as I moved over to Zack and Max who were running on the treadmills so fast that their legs were blurs. I looked at the treadmill and saw that the belt was moving at a 20, and the two still didn't break a sweat. "Wow."

"Don't get too excited princess; you're forgetting that there are still bad elementals out there." Max stated, breathing easily. "Like Koto and his merry band of idiots."

"Which reminds me," Zack turned his head and looked at me, stumbling for a second, before regaining his balance and turned to face the front again. I moved around to the front of the treadmill and he looked at me, eyes narrowed. "You think of a plan to figure out what they're hiding yet?"

"I'm working on it," I replied with a nod. "But what I really need is stats on them so I can make sure that it will work."

"So what do you expect us to do?" Zack sounded and looked annoyed. "Ask them to pretty please sit still so we can get an accurate reading on them?"

"Maybe not," Tapeworm mused. I turned and saw that he was sitting on the bench, rubbing his chin. "But that could be harder than you think." He muttered to himself before shaking his head and turning to address us. "Bailey has a good idea with getting their stats, but I don't think that we're going to get them willingly."

"So how do you propose that we get them?" Max demanded as she slowed down her treadmill and turned to look at her boyfriend. Tapeworm must have been used to her aggressiveness as he didn't flinch when she snapped at him.

"Easy," he gave a lopsided smile. "Just trick them."

"I think I have the way to do it." Zack added. "And like every other plan of mine, it should be fool proof."

"Zack, every other plan of yours has failed." Cody pointed out, looking a little worried.

"Not the ones that I used against you." Zack replied with an impish smile. "Then again, those were all small, lame ones." He looked thoughtful. "But the only thing that I'm scared of is that whatever they're hiding could be something that we haven't gone up against." He sighed heavily and looked more serious than I had ever seen him before. "And I'm afraid that we may not win this one."

* * *

**A/N Due to the many element stories that we had written, we had accidentally forgotten the names of Max and Tapeworm's guardians and we had forgotten what animals they were, so from now on, the ones that were in this chapter is their guardians. Hope you're still enjoying the story.**

**-Riley**


	10. I'm excited

CHAPTER NINE

* * *

"Are you sure that it's a good idea if you come along, Bailey?" Cody asked as we were setting up to get going later that night. All five of us were in the room that Zack and Cody used for themselves, talking and running over the plan again. I looked up at him, tearing my gaze from my mini notebook laptop and smiled as he nervously wrung his hands together. "I mean, you're probably going to get hurt and I wouldn't be able to live with myself if that ever happened."

How cute.

"Cody, I'll be fine," I reassured him as best as I could. But deep down I was as scared as he was. What if something _did_ go wrong? After seeing what these guys could do, I was really putting my life on the line here. Really, I didn't know if I was going to be fine. But I wanted to help my friends and I had to focus on putting them first before I worried too much about myself. "This plan is going to work."

"How can you be so sure about that?"

That threw me for a loop. It wasn't the way that he had asked it, but it was the look that was on his face. It wasn't the usual look that Cody gave me when he we were in a fake competition to see who got a better grade. It wasn't even the look that he got whenever we were talking about science or math. No, this look was far too serious to be Cody, and that made me think that maybe I shouldn't do this. Maybe this wasn't a good idea after al.

"Dude, don't psyche her out," Zack came over and placed a hand on Cody's shoulder so gently that I was surprised that this was the same Zack that always tormented his brother. But since they were twins, I guess they knew that they didn't mean what they said. "We want to know what's going on and she's probably the only one that can figure this out."

I felt a smile stretch across my face. "Well, thanks Zack, I-"

"That and the fact that without her we'd probably go mi much faster but not be as efficient." Zack continued, causing me to frown.

"Thanks, Zack." I mumbled as I rolled my eyes. "Ok, guys, I'm almost positive that this plan is going to work." I looked at my watched before tightly clutching my clipboard to my chest and looked over at Zack, Cody, Max, and Tapeworm, who were staring back at me, waiting. "We're still in Italy and if I'm not mistaken you guys said that along with your powers you were able to 'sense'" I used air-quotes around the word. "Whenever the…bad guys were around." I then turned to Max. "And your guardian is a dog and you guys said that you gain a little bit of your guardian." She nodded. "So that means that you'll be able to sniff them out."

"I never wanted to," Max scowled as she crossed her arms over her chest. "But they just smell so _fowl_ that you can't get it out of your nose."

"I'll take your word for it." Tapeworm agreed as he made a funny face, laughing a little. He looked over at Zack and Cody, expecting them to laugh I guess, but they were silent. That was only slightly surprising, but it's probably the fact that they were so used to this that they were serious each and every time.

"So, if you guys continue to follow my directions that I had planned out," I turned my clipboard around and quickly showed it to them again, taking a deep breath. "And everything will be fine!"

What was I thinking? There was no way that I could do this! I couldn't lead some kind of a revolution against people I don't really know and with things that I don't really understand. I mean, the only thing I understand without even having to try is math and science, and now science is showing me that everything can't be learned.

"Alright, so let's get out of here." Tapeworm stated as he rubbed his hands together, rolling his shoulders.

"How are you going to do that?" I asked as I furrowed my eyebrows together. "The whole Sky Deck is crowded and that's, pretty much the only way that you can get out of here…and we're kind of in a hurry."

"Don't worry," Zack snorted as he rolled his eyes. "You're forgetting that we've gotten out of places that were crowded before. And the only way that we can do that is with a diversion!" His eyes started to shine with mischief, letting me know that this was the same Zack that I've gotten to know. He can be serious, but in the end he'll always be himself.

"_Zack_ is the one that likes to do the diversions," Cody corrected his brother as we started to follow him out of the small room. "I'm the one that likes to blend in to leave."

"But that doesn't sound as fun," I replied after a second of silence.

I have to admit, that even though I am really scared to know what's going to happen…I'm excited too…

* * *

**A/N: Alright guys, the next chapter gets to the real point of the story, when all of the adventure starts. This chapter was shorter because I wanted you guys to get in anticipation for it and because I'm still working around my college schedule to get writing in. Bear with me, but I'm getting the hang of it. I hope you guys are still enjoying it.**

**-Riley**


	11. I did the first thing that came to mind

CHAPTER TEN

* * *

"Ok Phantom, I need you to get Bailey into the center of Italy as safely as you can, ok?" Cody said to his guardian, the large eagle that was perched on the side of the boat, moving up and down along with the gently rocking of the waves.

The timing was perfect; we weren't going to leave Italy until nearly midday tomorrow. And with their ability to run very fast would make it better for us to get a getaway if something went wrong. But nothing was going to go wrong because I'm sure that this plan was going to be completely fool proof. At least, that's what I hoped, I had the realistic idea that things may not go as well as I wanted. But with the hope that Zack was putting into me, and with the want for his mom and dad to be safe drove me to keep my mouth shut.

"Cody, I'll be fine," I reassured him, trying not to roll my eyes. "You worry too much, you know that." I commented.

"Trust me; he gets that way all of the time, so you don't have to worry about it." Zack stated as he patted my shoulder. He looked around, making sure that no one was coming.

But we didn't have to worry about it really, this part of the ship no one really went to. It was one the stern and on the floor that was the closest to the water, not many people came back here because they didn't like the spray of the water that splashed into their faces when getting too close. Then Mr. Moseby patrolled this part of the deck earlier tonight and I happened to know for sure that he wasn't going to come back anytime tonight.

When Zack was sure that no one was around he glowed red and wings sprouted out of his back. He shook his head as he stretched his arms, getting used to the feeling of the wings again. Mystified, I walked over and gently moved my fingers over the feathers as he held still, giving me an odd look. The feathers felt soft to the touch and they seemed not to bother Zack at all.

"So if you're done inspecting his back can we get going please?" Max demanded as she placed a hand on my shoulder tightly. I ignored the pain the best I could before moving back away from Zack. "I'm ready to kick some ass and I can't wait much longer."

"Alright," Cody glowed a bright blue and wings slid out of his shoulder blades as well. "Let's get going." He and Zack got up onto the railing and bent their knees before jumping into the air, their wings holding them up into the air. Max, Tapeworm, and I quickly climbed onto Phantom's back and I grabbed onto Max's waist tightly as he took off into the air with a quick sweep of his wings.

The feeling of being up in the air was amazing to say the least. The way that the salty wind blew through my hair and the view as we neared Italy was amazing, probably more than the idea of being in Seven Seas High. It made me want to know even more about elementals, I needed to know as much as I could. To be able to help my friends and to see how it works and how they were able to get their powers in general.

"You could ease up on your grip there." Max called over her shoulder, wincing. I could tell from the way her shoulders were hunched up. Quickly, I loosened my grip and let out a squeak as Phantom started to lower down towards the ground, feeling that I was about to fall off. "Ok, what did I just ask?"

"Max, chill ok." Tapeworm called over his shoulder, looking at his girlfriend with a raised eyebrow. "She's not used to being on an eagle, remember."

"I get that, but she's cutting off the circulation to my waist." Max snapped back.

"Both of you knock it off!" Zack snapped as he and Cody glided back towards our level. "We don't need anyone arguing or you could ruin everything. When it comes down to it Max, you're going to have to trust Bailey to help us." He looked over at me and I gave a half smile back before it faded completely with Zack's next words. "As much as I hate to admit it, I trust Bailey."

"So do I." Cody affirmed with a nod.

"So do I." Tapeworm agreed with a soft smile of his own. "Remember, it was hard for you to trust Maddie when it came to the whole elemental thing, and you eventually got over that, and you know deep down that you can trust Bailey too."

"Whatever," Max grumbled, not answering.

It didn't bother me that much, I knew that she would come around eventually; besides, it was hard for anyone to not like me.

* * *

We settled on the ground fairly easily and Zack and Cody started to walk back to the area that we were in earlier this afternoon. I had a feeling that if those guys, Koto and Reihu were going to be back again. And if that was true, then my plan would go easy as pie.

"Ok," I shifted my backpack that was resting on my shoulders, suddenly feeling uneasy. "You guys go and hide," I whispered to Max and Tapeworm, trying not to draw extra attention or have my voice drifts across the canal. Max and Tapeworm nodded and ran off to do so. I turned to Zack and Cody. "You two just wait out here, you've always said that Koto and them always try and wait until you're alone, I'm sure that they won't be able to sense that I'm around and because you said that you're the strongest out of all of you guys, I doubt he would care whether or not Max and Tapeworm are around if he's supposed to capture you."

"Stay safe, alright." Cody replied with a nod, causing Zack to roll his eyes.

"I will." I nodded in reply and hurried over to the entrance of the alleyway and went to hide. It didn't take a long wait until there a gust of wind and Koto, and three other guys were standing in front of Zack and Cody.

"Well, well, well," Koto remarked, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm surprised that you guys would come out here alone."

"Well you know us," Zack shrugged in reply. "Always wanting to make a splash every now and then."

"What were you doing in Boston?" Cody demanded. "What were you doing to our mom and dad? You know all of us left, what reason could you possibly have to go back there?" I looked over at Max, trying to catch her eye. She turned back to me and I nodded. Max gave thumbs up in reply and before I knew it she turned into a small puppy dog and trotted out in between the twin boys and Koto.

"What?" one of the other guys stated, bringing his guard down a little bit. Koto made a growling sound in his throat and turned back to the guy that spoke. "Kuroko, get rid of that mangy mutt! He's a poor excuse for a dog!"

I looked over at Tapeworm and nodded; he nodded back and stood up, punching his hands into the brick wall behind him as if it was butter. The cracking sound was Zack's and Cody's cue to start attacking, which they did perfectly.

"Firestorm!" Zack's arms burst into flames. He shifted his feet, spun in a quick circle and shoved his arms forward, a stream of fire rushing towards Koto, Reihu, and Kuroko. The three of them jumped out of the way, flying high into the air.

"Cascade Crush!" Cody's arms glowed blue and I turned my head to watch the water come out of the canal and rise into the air. As Cody moved his arms forward, the water rushed towards them. Max ran back over to me and turned back into a human before turning to her boyfriend.

"Tapeworm!" she cried breathlessly. "Now!"

"Got it!" Tapeworm's muscles bulged as she pulled a section of the concrete wall off of the building and then turned, whipping it at Koto, Kuroko, and Reihu like a Frisbee. They were hit by it and crashed to the ground. Reihu immediately got to his feet and charged into Max, hitting her in the stomach. Koto growled and leapt towards Zack as they got into a hand-to-hand combat and Kuroko and Tapeworm started to fight.

I just had to wait a bit longer and wait for Zack, Cody, and Tapeworm to get into the perfect position. I watched fight intently, wincing whenever there were loud sounds of skin connecting with skin as punches were thrown.

"Bailey!"

All of a sudden, something hit me in the side and I went skidding onto the ground, scraping my elbows and knees before stopping on my back. I sat up quickly and saw a large wolf leap overhead, towards Cody. When I rolled over to push myself up to my hands, I saw that there was a teenager standing in front of Cody, cracking his knuckles.

"It's about time Kagenui," Koto stated as he brushed his blonde hair out of his face before ducking as Zack went to punch him. He grabbed onto Zack's arm, thrust a palm into Zack's forehead, and threw him aside. "Get rid of the girl over there, her scent is starting to clog up my nose."

Kagenui turned to look at me, but Cody quickly got in his way. "You're going to have to get through me first." He stated and sank into a fighting stance. Kagenui just looked back at him and Cody moved forward, tacking Kagenui, knocking the both of them to the ground. "Water whip!" A stream of water came from the canal and snaked over to Cody's hand. He held the water over his head and started to lash Kagenui with it.

"You've got to be kidding if you think that a puny attack like that is going to hurt me," Kagenui rasped and flipped to his feet, knocking Cody off of his, skidding back against the ground. I got up and tried to figure out what to do. Max, Tapeworm, and Zack seemed to be holding on their own perfectly fine, but Cody seemed to be having trouble fighting.

It didn't make any sense, he said that he and Zack were some of the strongest elementals around and now here he was, getting pushed around so easily. What could be the cause…?

"Cow pies!" I hissed under my breath. "He's worried about me that means that he can't focus as well." As I said it, the realization hit me like a ton of bricks. "I have to get away from here."

I turned and started to go, but stopped when I heard a choking sound. I quickly turned back around and saw Kagenui with his hands around Cody's neck, choking him. Cody's face was already steadily turning red as he tried to move Kagenui's hands away. But I could tell from the look in Kagenui's eyes that he wasn't going to stop any time soon.

"Cody!" Zack cried, kicking Koto in the chest. "Don't worry buddy, I'll help you!" But I could tell that he wasn't going to get there in time, Koto was bouncing back at Zack over and over again, obviously trying to distract him.

So I did the first thing that I could think of.

"Back off!" I cried, grabbing a large metal pole and running towards Kagenui as fast as I could.

He turned around, letting go of Cody, shoving him backwards. Cody stumbled back into the concrete wall and fell to his knees, breathing heavily and trying to move the blood out of his eyes that fell from a scratch in his eyebrows. But I moved out of the way and swung the metal pole down as hard as I could, wincing and closing my eyes when I heard the sound of something cracking.

Kagenui seemed not to be effected by the metal pole at all, but when I opened my eyes I saw a stream of blood start to run down his forehead. Kagenui wiped his arm across his forehead and then glared at me and I swear I saw his eyes change to an eerie yellow color. He opened his mouth and I watched as his canines grew longer and a loud growl emitted from his throat. Startled, I dropped the metal pole and backed away as Kagenui started to shake as his body parts changed until he was a wolf standing in front of me.

"Bailey, run!" Zack cried just as Kagenui leapt at me.

I closed my eyes and turned away, waiting for the pain.

"Crystal Freeze!"

"Water Spirits, Water Bind!"

I opened my eyes just in time to see a stream of water shoot out of nowhere and wrap Kagenui up into it. In the cyclone of water Kagenui thrashed around, trying to escape it, but it was obvious that he wasn't going to get out. I watched in awe and a second later the cyclone, with Kagenui in it, froze completely. I would have thought that it was a dream due to the fact that I had blinked right before the ice had formed. But the instant drop in temperature let me know that it was reality.

Cody got to his feet, just as Koto, Rilian, and Kuroko turned to run away. Zack quickly moved to get in Koto's way as Tapeworm and Max moved to the other areas around him, effectively cutting him off. Koto glared at the three of him as his comrades continued to run away.

"Take one step and you're definitely going to get knocked out!" Zack warned as Tapeworm cracked his knuckles loudly. Koto's glare turned even colder as he realized that he was caught.

"Bailey, are you ok?" Cody asked as he hurried over to me.

"I'm fine Cody," I replied honestly, after checking my arms and legs. "A little shook up, but I'm fine." I looked around, trying to find who trapped Kagenui in the ice. It definitely wasn't Cody as it came from a completely different direction. "Where did that come from?"

Max tilted her head to the side as she listened and not taking her eyes off of Kagenui and then pointed straight up. I followed her finger and saw a girl and a young boy standing on a fire escape, leaning over the railing as they looked down, as if seeing if they did a job well done.

"Crys!" Cody called from next to me, sounding excited. "Syd! Nice timing guys!"

* * *

**A/N: And here's the next chapter, I bet you can't wait to see what happens next. I'll update as soon as I can. PS – The chapters are as long as I need them to be, but they'll get longer as the story goes on.**

**-Riley**


	12. I felt that she could see into my soul

CHAPTER ELEVEN

* * *

"Max! Tapeworm!" I watched as the little boy hurried over to the two and hugged them excitedly. "How have you been?" he questioned and a dimpled smile appeared on his face when they greeted him just as enthusiastically. "Zack and Cody." He turned to the twin boys and grinned. "I see that you guys are the same, always needing my help."

"Yeah right." Zack laughed and reached out, messing up his hair. "We had him handled." He stated as he looked over at Koto, who was still encased in a block of ice.

"I'm sure you did." He turned around and his eyes shined happily when he saw him. He quickly walked over and held out a hand. "Hi I'm Sydney!"

"I'm Bailey." I reached out and took his hand, shaking it firmly. "Nice to meet you."

"This is my cousin Crystal," Sydney stated as he motioned to the girl that was with him. She looked over at me and raised a hand, but didn't say anything. "She-"

"Syd, I think you've used up enough energy for today." Crystal commented and walked over to him, lightly placing a hand on his shoulder. Sydney smiled and fell silent. Crystal looked at me and I mustered up a friendly smile. She looked me up and don before turning to everyone else. "It's good to see you guys." She smiled and gave each of them a hug. "How have you been?"

"We don't have time to exchange our past few years now," Max interrupted. "We have to get him out of here," she jerked her thumb over at Koto, who was still glaring at him. "And we have to get back to the boat before Moseby even notices that we're gone." She turned and looked at me.

"What are we going to do about Kagenui?" Cody spoke up. "We know that he's stronger that Koto and will be good to have, but we also know that Koto will be easier to handle. "

"Leave that to me," Tapeworm replied with a nod.

Great job Bailey," she gave a half smile. "Your plan actually worked."

* * *

"So what are you doing here, Syd?" Zack asked as he sat down on the ground and looked at the little boy intently. "We thought that you guys were on tour." He looked worried; there was no way to mask the emotion behind his eyes.

I instantly flashed back to that one day in the computer lab.

_I let out a big sigh and carefully moved to another seat and leaned over, trying to get a better look at it. Zack finally moved backwards, away from the computer and I could see that they were on a band website. That made absolutely no sense to me, and my reflection on the computer screen showed that I had a definite confused expression on my face._

_"Why would they waste their time going on a band website?" I whispered to myself and then frowned as another thought entered my mind. "Why would Cody lie to me?"_

_Yeah, he did, he completely lied right to my face. Without thinking, I got up and started my way over to the twins, to confront Cody about lying to me, but something that he said, caused me to stop and dive underneath the table that was behind them, holding a hand over my mouth so they couldn't hear my breathing._

_"So, they're on their way to do a concert in Madrid," Cody said quietly, his chin resting in his hand as he clicked on another link and a different part of the site opened. "I wonder if we're going to be going there soon, they may need our help."_

_"Cody, we know that they can handle whatever problem that gets in their way," Zack replied with a chuckle and a shake of his head. Surprisingly, he was actually using a serious tone. "It's when all of Wingz Corp is around that we have to worry about them."_

_"You mean worry about __her__" Cody replied with a teasing smile. Zack shrugged and smiled, not bothering to deny the accusation. This caused Cody to laugh a little bit, giving me time to regulate my breathing so I was taking loud, deep breaths._

_"What girl?" I whispered to myself. "Who are they talking about?"_

"I thought I recognized you from somewhere," I commented after a second and smiled over at Sydney again. He looked at me curiously, waiting to see what I had figured out. "You're Spirit from the DarkElements."

"So you know my stage name." Sydney commented with a twitch at the corner of his mouth. Of course I knew it, he and his siblings were part of the band the DarkElements and I loved their music. They had a good mixture of all genres and I knew that not many people were able to pull that off. I looked over at Crystal and then noticed that she had the same facial features and facial structure as Sydney's older sisters. "Not many people do." He remarked before turning his attention to Zack. "We never were on tour." He explained, gathering attention from Tapeworm, Max, and Cody.

Crystal just sat back on the couch that she was sitting on, waiting if she ever needed to speak. I don't know how she did it, but she had this way with her blue eyes to make it look like she was looking right through your soul. It freaked me out, but in a way it made me feel comfortable at the same time.

"We used going on a tour as a cover," Sydney explained, sounding as if he was holding something back. He rubbed his forehead and gave a short sigh. "Um, we were being chased, even harder by WingzCorp," he explained. "We had no idea why, but they kept saying that they were chasing us for our own good and we couldn't understand why."

"The same thing happened when we were back in Boston." Tapeworm spoke up and Sydney listened patiently. "We would go visiting Ms. Martin and Mr. Martin and they would hold back for a while, Caos and Kuroko, but then eventually they wouldn't care and start attacking anyway. They said that their trying to capture us was for our own good too."

"That's interesting." Cody muttered as he rubbed his chin. "Go on." He instructed Sydney.

"So after a while we realized that it would be better if we kept up the cover of going around on tour and we set up this elaborate thing that to our fans we gave them a bunch of stuff to lessen the fact that we really weren't going on tour." He gave a snort. "And we also explained that we were doing an experiment to see our ticket sales and stuff." He shrugged. "Some people were upset as they should be, but they understood."

"How old is he?" I asked, leaning closer to Max.

"He's nine" she replied quickly, still looking at him.

That definitely surprised me, he was sitting here acting like he could have been twenty for all I knew, not as hyper-active as normal nine year old boys. But I guess if he was an elemental too, and he was that young, he had to grow up fast to make sure that he could handle what was going on.

"While that was happening, we were trying to figure out why WingzCorp was going after us and we even broke back into it at one point," he rubbed his forehead again, looking distraught. "Trust me, that wasn't the smartest idea I've ever had, even though I knew that we had to do it." He wiped his hands off on his pants legs. "We barely found out anything before we were found, and we decided to split up, so I got onto my staff and went back to Boston, knowing that the others would want me to be protected."

"And that's when he found me" Crystal spoke up. "Dad and I had encountered Max and Tapeworm being attacked from time to time and knew that something was going on." She pulled her hair behind her ear. "We were contemplating whether or not we should leave Boston when Syd came by. He explained everything to us and Dad and I talked even more about whether or not we should leave Boston. But we also had Aaron to think about."

"So what we eventually agreed on was Christian and Aaron was going to go and try to get to safety," Sydney broke in again. "But in a place where Christian could continue to work on tests and stuff while Crystie-Chan and I went to try and find the others. Or Zack and Cody, whichever came first." He raised his hands. "And here we are."

"How'd you find us?" Zack asked, running his hands through his hair.

"Well, we flew around a lot," Sydney replied simply. "We were following the letters that you guys sent and where you last where, so we kept flying until we sensed you." He gave an impish smile. "But we didn't expect Max and Tape to be here as well.

"So there was nothing that you found out?" Max asked, sounding annoyed and helpless. "Nothing as to why they're chasing us?"

"I have an idea," Sydney replied vaguely. "But it'll take a bit for me to figure out if I'm right or wrong." He reached for his bag and opened it. "But in the meantime, it will give me time to test your levels of energy if you don't mind."

"Go ahead, Syd." Cody insisted.

"Uh," I spoke up, clearing my throat nervously. "What elements do you guys have?" I questioned Sydney and Crystal. Sydney stayed silent as he booted up his laptop, so Crystal answered.

"I have the element of ice," she explained tonelessly. "Syd has the element of spirits. So, basically, he has like, the power of all of the elements, but not at the same time." She made a face. "It's kind of hard to explain." She rubbed her neck nervously. "His guardian is SpiritSaru a monkey and mine is Dricer a white tiger."

"Can they-"I was interrupted.

"Are you done?"

We all turned towards Koto and looked at him. He was sitting in the corner of the room, his knees brought up to his chest and he looked utterly bored. I was surprised to see that he wasn't trying to break out of the room as I knew that he was really strong.

Earlier, Tapeworm had broken Kuroko out of his block of ice and Zack had warned him that everyone would continue to fight him if he tried to get Koto back. Kuroko had easily seen that Koto wouldn't have been able to get away from them as well as stand a chance with six elementals around. So he just turned tail and left. After that, Koto had fallen silent and didn't talk, even when he was brought back to the ship.

"All you chuckle heads ever do is talk, talk, talk," Koto rolled his eyes. "Don't you ever give your jaws a break?" His eyes scanned the room and I shuddered when they landed on me. For a second they seemed to flash into wolf's eyes. I looked away. "It's no wonder that you're always fighting for what is right and going to save the world." He spoke mockingly. "You're such wimps it's not even funny." He snorted. "Now if you don't mind, I need to get out of here. You know, 'cause I have to go to the bathroom and-"

"You're not getting out of here!" Zack snapped, causing me to stare at him in shock. This was the first time that I had ever seen him that mad. "You're going to answer some questions!" He got up and stalked over to the blonde haired boy and glared down at him. "Why are all of you chasing us and saying that it's for our own good? Why?"

Koto smirked and blew his fringe out of his face. "I don't know where she is." He stated simply with a shrug.

I felt my eyebrows come together. _Who are they talking about_? I asked myself in confusion. But I didn't say anything out loud; I wanted to make sure that I could hear what they were saying.

"That's not what I was asking!" Zack snapped.

"But it's what you wanted to know." Koto replied simply and tilted his head back. "Sorry kid, I don't know anything. I just follow Core's orders."

"I don't believe you."

"Believe what you want, kid, I don't care." Koto crossed his legs, looking as if he wasn't bothered. "All I have to say is," he gave a slow, sinister smile. "You're going to regret kidnapping me when you realize that all we're trying to do is help you."

* * *

**A/N: And here's the next chapter, its getting there guys. Now you have Crystal and Sydney in the picture and there's still a lot of people that are going to appear. I'm not sure how long this story is going to be, but I'm having fun with it and that's all that matters. I'll update soon. Happy (early) Turkey Day everyone! :)**

**-Riley  
**


	13. Busted

CHAPTER TWELVE

* * *

"So you're Sydney's cousin" I remarked a few days later as Crystal and I started to walk back towards the secret room. I knew that Woody, Marcus, and London were becoming suspicious as to why we were always disappearing but since Zack and Cody were used to it, they were able to easily lie their ways out of it. "I would have thought that you were his sister from your facial structure."

"Yeah, well, his mom and my mom were twins, and oddly enough his older sisters and I were born on the same day." Crystal replied shortly. "And the three of us look the same so that makes sense."

"Oh" I replied and fell silent.

I wasn't sure what to say to her because I was afraid that she was mad at me for some reason. But I don't know why she would be mad, I hadn't met her before and I don't think I did anything to offend her. I asked Zack about it and he just shrugged and said that was the way that she is with new people, it hard for her to warm up to them. I asked Cody and he looked concerned saying that something was wrong. Then I asked Sydney and he just said that it was because she was away from her father and her adoptive brother and she was worried about them. So much that she had a tendency to alienate anyone until she was sure that the person was ok.

"Do you know when Sydney's brothers and sisters are going to be back?" I asked, trying to change the subject.

Crystal stopped and looked sharply at me. "Why so you can get an autograph?" she spat.

"No," I took a step back, suddenly confused. "I was just thinking that Sydney would like to see them." I scratched my head. "I would have thought that you would like to see them as well."

Crystal's face softened ever so slightly. "I do," she replied with a short nod. "But for right now, it's a good thing that they're not here, as long as they aren't around Koto, then we'll be able to get some answers from him before something goes wrong and things generally tend to go wrong when they're around each other."

"But how is that-"

"I don't want to talk about it," Crystal interrupted as we turned the corner to walk to the room. She walked over to the door, scratched twice and knocked once and waited a second before the door opened and we walked inside.

I almost laughed when I saw the completely bored expression on Koto's face as he sat down on the couch, his arms behind his head and staring at the ceiling. Zack and Cody were standing over him, looking annoyed, and Max, Tapeworm, and Sydney were nowhere to be found.

"What's going on?" Crystal questioned, getting everyone's attention as we entered the room.

"We're trying to get him to talk to us," Cody replied as patiently as he could, but I could see his hands twitching in annoyance. "Trying to get him to explain why he's been chasing after everyone so much lately." He blew his hair out of his face. "We also know that he knows something about the others but he's not talking."

"Does that really surprise you?" Crystal snorted as she shook her head. "You know that you can't get anything out of these guys unless you practically beat them to death." She turned to Zack, who had made a sound of agreement. "Don't even try it buddy, we don't need that on our hands and a healthy Koto is better than a nearly dead one." She reasoned.

"Why's that?" Zack spat back.

Before Crystal could answer there was a flash of red light and a small red and brown eagle appeared beside Zack. I had to guess that it was Zack's guardian Blazen. It looked exactly like Phantom, except for the different colors of his feathers and armor.

"Hey you," he flew over to Koto's face and hovered in front of him, right in front of Koto's green eyes. "Answer Zack's questions. He's already a wreck due to the fact that Riley isn't here." He moved closer to Koto's face and Koto just laid there, staring at him. "And I don't need to hear him blubbering anymore."

"Thanks Blazen thanks a lot." Zack rolled his eyes.

I giggled and turned back to Koto and Blazen to see what was going to happen. Koto just stared at the small bird in front of his face with unblinking eyes. Finally, he let out a simple breath, rolled his eyes, and looked back at Blazen again.

"And you think that a little chicken is going to get me to talk." He said as a statement more than a question.

"What?" Blazen erupted and landed on Koto's chest, sticking his feet into Koto's shirt to hold on tightly, just in case he was shaken off. "A chicken! I am _not_ a chicken!"

"Whatever," Koto grabbed Blazen in his fist and threw him across the room, where he hit the other wall and slid to the ground. He let out a squeak of pain and looked up with a dazed expression in his eyes. At least, from I could tell from my side of the room.

"Hey!" Zack cried and hurried over to his guardian, lifting him up into his arm. "Are you ok, buddy?" he questioned, gently stroking Blazen's feathers. Blazen nodded, shaking his wings out. He puffed up and turned his back on Koto.

"I'm not a chicken." He muttered, shaking his head.

"Why do you care so much?" I asked with a laugh as I reached out and stroked his feathers. Blazen didn't seem to mind and turned and moved his head into my palm.

"I'm part of Zack," Blazen replied as if it was obvious. "And he's a part of me, where do you think I got it from? I sort of _have_ to care what people think about me."

"Wow," Zack looked like he had just thought of something and turned to Cody, who raised an eyebrow, although his eyes were still on Koto. "I now understand what you mean when you say that my opinion of myself is annoying." He gave a wry smile. "I just didn't notice it until Blazen spoke."

"Told ya." Cody replied.

"Where are Max and Tapeworm and Sydney?" I questioned, wanting to be included into the conversation. I may not know everything about elementals and I was still learning, and I still wanted to be included.

"They're getting some tests done." Cody replied shortly. He sighed and rubbed his forehead. "This is getting us nowhere." He muttered before looking at his watch. "I have to get some homework done for Tutweiller" he stated, causing Zack and Crystal to groan and roll their eyes. He ignored them.

"I have something that I need to do," Crystal added as she slid her hands into her pockets and rocked back on her heels. "It can't wait I need to have it done soon." She shook her head apologetically. "So I can't stay here.

"I'll do it," Zack stated and cracked his knuckles threateningly as Blazen moved to his shoulder. "I need to teach this guy a lesson anyway."

"Don't you have to start work?" Cody asked his twin pointedly.

Zack snorted as he turned to face him. "Did you hear Moseby calling my name?" Zack asked in reply, looking at his fingernails. When Cody rolled his eyes, Zack smirk. "Didn't think so, so I have about an hour until he actually comes looking for me," he held a hand up in front of Cody's face. "Now if Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes is done-"

"ZACHARY MARTIN!"

I winced, hearing Mr. Moseby's screaming. That meant that he knew that Zack wasn't at his job and that he was going to kill him. I raised an eyebrow and looked over at Zack, who had his shoulders up to his ears and his eyes wide. Even Koto was looking over at him with a raised eyebrow.

I wonder why he didn't run away, or try to escape.

"You were saying?" I asked smugly as I crossed my arms over my chest and smirked at Zack. He glared at him and started to say something, but Mr. Moseby yelled again, even louder than before. I had to slap my hands over my ears to make sure that my hearing didn't get ruptured.

"I guess this means that I have to go." Zack laughed nervously and then looked scared.

"Wait," Cody threw out an arm, keeping him from moving. "What about him?" he motioned to Koto.

"Oh yeah," I nodded in agreement. "Cody and I have homework to do and you have to go and work." I explained, counting off on my fingers. "And we don't know when Max, Tapeworm, and Sydney are going to be done." I placed my hands on my hips and tilted my head to the side. "Who's going to watch him?"

"I can't," Cody shook his head. "I have to get this extra credit work done." He smiled in the way that meant that he was going to start talking about his perfect grades. It was cute. "I have to keep my grades up, I have an A+ you know." He shot me a smug smile.

That ticked me off; he and I were always competing in our grades because we were the smartest ones in our grade. But unlike him, I knew not to broadcast my grades each and every change I got like he did. But whenever he tried to prove that he was smarter it always annoyed me to no end. I don't even know why. Zack thinks it's because I like him so much that I want to prove to him that I can hold my own.

But what does Zack know.

"An A+" I pretended to sound happy, yet sad at the same time. "That's great, too bad my A++ is better!" I nodded as Cody's mouth dropped open.

"How is that even possible?" he screeched.

"Nice to know where your loyalties lie." Koto snorted as he sat up and stretched himself from head to toe like a dog. "I don't need watching." His feet shifted back and forth rapidly and his fingers drummed on the couch cushions. "Damn, I need a cigarette." He muttered to himself.

"Unless you want it to explode in your face, you're not getting one!" Blazen replied with the stink-eye. (At least the best that you could get when you're a bird.)

"Well what do you propose to do?" Koto raised an eyebrow as he stood up. He waved his arms over towards Zack. "This guy here has to go to work and if not will be screamed at by that scary dude again." He waved an arm over towards Cody and me. "And these…" he trailed off, looking us up and down. "_Lovers_ are probably just going to make lovey-dovey eyes all afternoon."

I blushed and looked away from Cody.

"You don't know what you're talking about!" I snapped and placed my hands on my hips and raised my chin haughtily. "I'll watch over you."

"You?" Koto snorted and moved close to me. He sniffed loudly as he walked around me in a circle before Cody reached out a hand and pushed him back. "You're not even an elemental, how do you propose that you're going to keep me here?"

"I have my ways." I didn't let his tone hurt me. "I know how to rope cattle, pigs, _and_ chickens without even batting an eye." Koto looked at me strangely but I kept going. "So being able to handle a dog shouldn't be hard."

"I'm a wolf!" Koto growled dangerously, his eyes flashing. "Get it right."

"We're not going to let you be the one to watch him." Crystal spoke up, shaking her head again. "He's too strong for you."

"_Please_" Koto threw his hands into the air in exasperation. "I can't stay in this room all day or I'll go nuts, I need to stretch my legs. I'll just turn into a wolf and people will think I'm a dog so I'll be able to get around without people worrying." He continued when he saw the suspicious looks on our faces. "It's not like I can jump into the water and doggy-paddle all the way back to land."

"What if we get to land and you go contact your friends?" Zack questioned.

"Somehow I doubt you're going to let that happen." Koto stated sardonically. "Geez, I just want to take a walk." He crossed his arms over his chest. "Sometimes I would think that you're the evil ones not me."

"Whatever," Crystal brought her wrist up to her mouth. It was then I noticed a silver and black watch around her wrist. I thought it was a normal watch until she pressed a button on the side and started talking. "Hey Syd, we need you back here as soon as you can. We need someone to watch over Koto so he can take a walk, the rest of us have something to do."

_"Um, ok, Max and Tapeworm is going to still be working on their element tests, I'll be over in two seconds." _To my amazement, Sydney's voice came out of the watch.

Literally two seconds later, the door opened and Sydney walked into the room a small backpack on his back. He looked over at Koto, his eyes not turning suspicious or angry as they usually would. His eyes were just clear and curious looking.

"We're going to be doing homework," I explained to Sydney, motioning to Cody. "Zack has to work-"

"Yeah, I heard Moseby's screaming." Sydney stated with an impish smile.

"And Crystal has something that she needs to get done, she didn't say what, but-"

"I know," Sydney interrupted. "Don't worry." He turned to Koto and looked at him hard. "Let's go." Koto looked back at him before taking a step back and turning into a wolf. He moved down into a stretch and stood back up, looking at Sydney with his green, animalistic eyes. Sydney turned on his heel and left the room with Koto padding beside him.

"Are you sure that he's going to be ok?" I asked as I watched Sydney leave the room.

For some odd reason, I had a really strange feeling about the two of them. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was as if I could sense something was going to happen.

"They'll be fine." Zack replied. Blazen disappeared from his shoulder in a flash of red light and he clasped his hands together. "I've got to get going before Moseby goes on the warpath. We'll meet up later." He hurried out of the room, followed by Crystal, who left the room in the opposite direction, leaving me and Cody alone.

"Shall we?" I asked with a cheerful lift in my voice.

"We shall." Cody smiled and bowed a little. "After you, milady."

He's so cute.

…

..

.

_"Hurry up!" Noah hissed as he brushed his hood off of his forehead. He looked around, making sure the coast was clear. "I don't think we have much time and Riley and Rhuben are going to wonder what's taking us."_

_"I'm going as fast as I can," Patrick replied as he moved over to the corner of the room. Dragon wings sprouted from his back and he flew up to the ceiling and grabbed onto the rafters. He let go of one hand, gave Noah a thumbs up, and then turned upside down and shimmied his way across the ceiling, around the corner, and out of sight._

_Patrick continued to move, making sure that his wings, which were flapping gently behind him, didn't get in the view of the security cameras that were angled towards the floor. He continued on until he found the room that was lit up with lights from the inside. He could hear talking, most likely from people around his age. He quietly moved into the room and found a high window at the top and sat down, pulling his hood over his face._

_"So, what are we going to do about HaloSyndicate?" a small girl with pigtails questioned. Patrick couldn't say much except for the backs of the people's heads. There were about twenty of them in the room, ages ranging from about 6 to 20._

_"With WingzCorp trying to get Male Water and Male Fire and all of their friends together so they can try and get them to help save the world, we all know that HaloSyndicate aren't going to take that lying down." A boy about 10 agreed._

_"Unfortunately HaloSyndicate doesn't understand that if they continue on with the original plan that both organizations were assigned, no one is going to survive this." An 18 year old girl shook her head. "No human and no elemental, both worlds will cease to exist."_

_"How much time do we have?" A tall boy, around the age of 19 or 20 asked. It Patrick had to guess, he would be the leader out of all of them._

_"A little over a year." The small girl replied almost immediately._

_"We don't have much time." The tall boy rubbed his chin. "Everyone is dismissed; I'll call you back together when I need you."_

_Patrick quickly moved off of the window sill, pushed his wings down, and flew back towards Noah as quickly as he could and as stealthy as he could._

_"Well?" Noah asked when Patrick reached his side._

_"It's just as we thought," Patrick stated, shaking his head. "WingzCorp isn't the only thing that's after elementals." He took a breath. "There's still so much that we don't know about WingzCorp and we're going to have to figure out as much as possible."_

_"I agree." Noah nodded once. "But we have to relay this to Riley and Rhuben and the new can figure out what to do from there."_

_"Right." Patrick agreed._

_The two turned and flew out of the building and into the night, moving high into the sky so no one would see them._

_

* * *

_I yawned as I ran my fingers through my hair. I never knew that Cody could be so boring sometimes. It still surprised me how different Zack and Cody were, even though they looked exactly the same. Don't get me wrong, I love books and everything, but there were times where I wanted to talk about something else.

I strolled along the sky deck, enjoying the sun on my face and smiled as I smelled the salt sea air. Sometimes I found it hard to think that I had grown up in a place that usually wouldn't give me this opportunity. I know that all of my sisters were jealous, but they didn't want to leave the farm and see the world as much as I did.

And now I was brought into something even bigger than the farm and the boat.

As I continued to walk along the sky deck, I noticed Koto and Sydney talking quietly at a nearby table. Koto looked kind of funny, his head was darting around frantically and he kept shifting his feet back and forth as if he wasn't able to sit still.

I started to call out Sydney's name, but stopped when Koto suddenly stopped fidgeting and looked at Sydney seriously, leaning in a little bit.

I know that I shouldn't have eavesdropped, but I really wanted to know what was going no. So I grabbed a newspaper from someone's hands and held it over my face as I walked closer to them. I stopped and sat down on an empty deck chair when I was close enough to be able to hear them.

"So tell me truth," Sydney was saying as I had gotten there. "Why do you want to know where Riley and Rhuben are so badly?"

"There's something that I need to tell them," Koto replied simply. "It's important. WingzCorp business."

"You're forgetting that I was in WingzCorp as well." Sydney commented coolly. It was the first time that I had heard him sound mean instead of bubbly like he usually is. "It wasn't my favorite choice in life, but I did it. So why can't you tell me."

"You're a little too young to know," Koto replied and Sydney must have looked offended as he kept going. "You can read my mind if you want, I know that you can, but it's still not going to help you." He took a deep breath. "Core implanted this thing in my brain…I don't know what it does or what it's for…all I know is that Riley and Rhuben will know and there's something else that I have to tell them that's really important."

"Hm." Sydney murmured.

"I promise that I'm not trying to pull one over on you, kid." Koto continued. "You can believe me or not, I don't care, but I need this done." I looked over my shoulder and he shifted closer to Sydney. "I know that you know...where your sisters and brothers are."

'_What_?' I thought to myself in confusion. _'That makes no sense, he just said to us that he didn't know where they were and he had no clue how to communicate with them as they don't reply. Not even telepathically._'

"I do." Sydney muttered. "But I haven't told the others where they are, they don't need to know." He shook his head. "Not yet."

"Yes, but-"Koto stopped and lifted his head, sniffing. He lowered his head and narrowed his eyes at me. "We have company."

Busted.

* * *

**A/N: For this story I had been wrestling with this idea for a while, even before I started writing it…do you think that I should make it a Ziley (ZackxRiley) and Koley (KotoxRiley) or a love triangle between the three. I know that people like Ziley, but I always thought that Koley would be a good idea since they have gone through the same thing and trust each other because they're in the same division of WingzCorp. On DeviantArt/Fictionpress I had once written a few stories with the Koley pairing and people liked it. So let me know.**

**This story is going to be a big one and it's most likely going to be a standalone story (without a sequel) and then I have an idea for another SLOD/Element fic.**

**I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter.**

**Oh and do you think this will be better as a Crystody or a Cailey?**

**-Riley**


	14. Yo, who are the newbies?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"So what if he really knows where his brothers and sisters are?" Max questioned with a shrug as she pulled her hair up into pigtails, looking at me through the mirror. "I learned a long time ago that what they do, say, or hide from us, the Jacksons have a good reason for it."

I sighed and propped my chin in my hands as I waited for Max to finish getting ready. To my right, London snored loudly, said something about diamonds in her sleep, and rolled over and continued sleeping. It was obvious that she wasn't going to go to class; she usually didn't go as it was and got failing grades in almost everything. (If her father wasn't the one that owned the ship and was the boss of everyone that works on it, then I wouldn't be surprised if she had flunked all the way back to Kindergarten.)

"But aren't you the least bit curious as to what they could be hiding?" I asked, getting a little desperate. I always had the drive to know everything I could about everything and it was driving me insane that I didn't really know what was going on with Sydney's brothers and sisters.

"Yes and No" Max replied and turned away from the mirror to face me, grabbing her bag. "But like I said before," she shrugged. "If they're hiding something, they have a reason and I'm not about to ask them what that reason is. If it's important they'll tell us, if not, then they won't." She pulled her backpack onto her shoulders. "C'mon, we have to get to class."

"What about Koto?" I questioned, raising my eyebrows. "And how are you going to get into the class, we already have a full roster."

"You'd think that," Max replied with a sly smile. "And as for Koto, don't worry about him, Zack has it covered."

"Meaning that he is going to skip class just to watch over him?" I guessed.

"Exactly." Max replied with a little laugh and a nod. "C'mon, I don't want to be late and I need to make sure that Tape doesn't try and create a new nickname with the breakfast buffet. I swear the guy must have three stomachs or something."

I laughed as I grabbed my own backpack, triple-checking to make sure that all of my homework was there, and then followed her out of the room, with barely a look back at London. I know that she'd make it to class eventually, not that she would learn much, but at least she got the attendance points.

"So, can I ask you something?" I questioned, nervously wringing my hands together. "Did you and Zack ever date? Because he seemed kind of upset when he found out that you and Tapeworm were dating."

"Zack?" Max snorted. "He'd get mad about any girls he even _thinks_ he likes looking at someone in a movie." She looked at the ceiling as if she was trying to decide what would be the best answer. "We didn't date _exactly_ but we had this on-off thing with each other. When I liked him he didn't like me, but when he liked me I didn't like him. Eventually I gave up and we've been good friends ever since." She looked over at me oddly. "Why do you care anyway?"

"Just curious." I replied truthfully. "I mean," I blushed a little. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I want to know everything that there is to know about elementals and everything that you guys have gone through."

"Because?" Max prompted, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Because I'm jealous of how close all of you are," I replied, realizing that I was telling the truth as I admitted it. It was the first time that I had ever said it out loud. "The only thing that I heard from Zack's and Cody's mouths the first few months that I've known them was Max and Tapeworm this and that."

"Huh," Max made a sound out of the corner of her mouth. I looked over at her and she looked back at me and odd expression on her face. "They didn't mention the Jacksons or Crystal? Not even once?"

"No" I shook my head. "Why?"

"I just find it odd, but then again I understand it because of the fact that it had to do with the elemental stuff and they couldn't tell you." Max replied.

I nodded in reply and let my mind wander as we strolled onto the sky deck, meeting up with Tapeworm, who was scarfing down omelets as we walked up. Max grabbed one and took a bite of the end before grabbing onto Tapeworm's arm and dragging him out of his chair so we could get to class. We met up with Cody and Crystal on the way and we all walked together before we went inside the classroom.

"Yo, who are these newbies?" Marcus questioned as we strolled into the classroom.

"This is Max Montgomery, Tapeworm Michaels, and Crystal Manning." I introduced as calmly as I could. "They're new students having got on the boat at our last stop."

"But our last stop was in Italy and that was a week-"

"I know," I interrupted Woody as he looked at the new students with a suspicious expression. "They happened to get on the boat as if it was like magic, right?" I gave a false smile and nodded rapidly as Marcus and Woody looked at each other.

"Bailey," Cody tapped me on the shoulder and I slightly turned my heard towards him. "I think they get the point."

"Right." I sighed and nodded as Cody went over to his spot. I moved my backpack up my shoulders and turned to go to my seat, stopping to see that Crystal was already sitting there. I tilted my head to the side, slightly confused. "Um, that's my seat." I stated as politely as I could.

"I'm sorry Bailey," Cody apologized, looking over at me with wide, innocent eyes. "She needs to see the board." He stated, motioning over to Crystal.

"Hope you don't mind," she gave a half smile, which faded almost immediately. "My eyesight isn't as great as it used to be, even with contacts." She explained.

"It's no problem," I replied with an easy going smile. "It's just, I'm not sure where else to sit and-"

"Bailey, Zack's seat is free." Woody pointed out, motioning to the desk next to him.

I made a face as I walked over to Zack's desk and sat down. It didn't feel like my desk, it didn't smell like my desk, and I hated the fact that I was sitting behind Marcus, because he moved too much and it would probably make it harder for Miss. Tutweiller to answer all of my questions.

But as long as I was helping Cody's friend things were fine…

* * *

**A/N: Short chapter, sorry about that, but the next one is going to be up soon. I just wanted to divert away from the elemental stuff a tiny bit. And I'm taking the advice of a few people for the pairings so that's what this chapter is for. I'll update again soon.**

**Next chapter will be longer**

**-Riley**


	15. You're more important than you think

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

* * *

Riley made a sound of annoyance as she tugged at a zipper on her bag. It wouldn't move and kept getting stuck on the fabric that was on the inside. She gritted her teeth and grabbed the zipper in both hands and tugged it back as hard as she could, not caring when the slight sound of a tear was audible, all she cared about was that the bag was finally closed and that she could move on to the next one. She paused when headlights rolled across the room. No one outside could see her, but she held still all the same.

"What are you doing?" Rhuben questioned as she walked into the room as soon as the headlights disappeared. She looked over her shoulder before lowering her voice. "Pat and No finally fell asleep."

"That's good," Riley remarked and stood up, cracking her back. "And I'm packing."

"I can see that." Rhuben nodded.

"Then why ask?" Riley replied and the two smiled a little. "We need to get to the others as soon as possible." She explained.

"It would be too early," Rhuben shook her head. "We need to find out a little bit more before we tell the others what's going on." She snorted a little. "And we all know that Pat is willing to go back in there and stalk someone till he finds out anything, he's been kind of bored lately."

"Yeah I've noticed," Riley brushed her hair out of her face. "He must be really worried about Syd."

"You aren't?" Rhuben raised her eyebrows.

"I didn't say that." Riley replied shortly.

The two stood there in silence, both thinking about what had happened the last time that all of them were together. They had been ambushed, completely blindsided by Cindy, Tori, and Tora. It was obvious that they had gotten stronger as they almost immediately knocked Patrick and Noah off their feet. They fought long and hard but the three girls seemed to be desperate to have the Jacksons listen to them because they had fought as hard as they could, finally causing all five of them to fall to the ground in exhaustion. (This isn't an easy feat.)

It was then that Tori explained that they were trying to capture all of them for a good reason, that they needed their help. Riley and Rhuben definitely didn't believe it, but Sydney, ever the sensitive one, wanted to hear them out. Cindy quickly explained that there was another group out there, called Halo Syndicate, which was pretty much WingzCorp's other half. But Halo Syndicate found something out that WingzCorp didn't know and broke away from WingzCorp and started to attack them.

Core didn't understand why and had now gone into hiding to try and figure things out for himself, leaving the BlackWolves, the DarkLions, DragonGang, and Spirit-X to fend for themselves. (Unanimously they decided to continue to try and grab those that they had been chasing after for years to get them to understand what was possibly going to happen.)

But the Jacksons didn't believe it, and the girls were so desperate that they were going to continue fighting them until they agreed to go along with them. That's when they split up, after a quick second of thought, Rhuben told Sydney to go off to Boston to see if he could find anybody, especially to keep his eyes peeled for Crystal and her father.

Sydney immediately flew off right then and Riley, Rhuben, Patrick, and Noah turned and took off the other way.

Now they had spent the past few weeks researching everything they could about Halo Syndicate before they brought the news to their friends, just in case it was all a hoax. Unfortunately there wasn't much to learn and they would have to make a decision about it soon.

"I'm sure he's fine." Riley stated after studying her twin. "We'd know if he wasn't."

"That's not what I was worried about," Rhuben stated, shaking her head. "What if…" she trailed off for a minute and Riley waited, knowing that what she had to say was important. "What if what they're saying is true?"

"What? You mean WingzCorp?" Riley tiled her head to the side, the one movement emitting massive waves of what she was thinking.

"I know it sounds crazy, but you know how Syd told us that they've caught Koto and that he really needs to talk to you and me?" Rhuben motioned between herself and her sister. "I think that, for once in his life, he's telling the truth. I don't know, for some reason, I feel that there might be something that we need to know."

"So do you agree that we need to get back there?" Riley questioned.

Before Rhuben could answer, there was a flash of red and purple light that emitted from their bodies and their guardians DalFang and DeathLiger appeared at their sides.

"What do you think?" Riley questioned, turning to the wolf that stood beside her. He seemed to make a sound of agreement as he and DeathLiger moved down onto their stomachs on the floor, their paws stretched out in front of them.

"I think that whatever you decide is a good decisions, Mistress." DalFang replied loyally.

"Thanks," Riley sounded sarcastic and annoyed. "That was very helpful."

"Well, really, he is right," DeathLiger spoke up, his whiskers twitching. "We can't make the decision for you, we can only stand by your side and protect you like we had promised we would to become a guardian." He explained. Rhuben reached out a hand and ran her slender fingers over his fur. "But that's a different story."

"Do you believe what they have been telling us?" Rhuben asked, her eyebrows furrowing together. "That the reason that they're chasing us so much this time is because they want to help us?"

"It's possible," DeathLiger replied after a second. "But they really don't have the reputation for you to believe them." He licked a scar that was on the back of his paw and drew it over his face. "Either way, I feel that something bad is going to happen soon."

"When does it not?" Rhuben replied.

* * *

"Hey Zack, could I have a Banana-Fofanana, please?" I questioned as I pulled myself onto a stool by the smoothie bar.

"Sure thing, Bailey." Zack replied cheerfully. "Just hold on a second." I watched as he turned to throw all of the ingredients in the blender to make my drink. He poured the other customers their drinks as well as I waited for mine.

For some reason, Zack seemed to be happier today. Happier than usual, as he usually hated to work at the smoothie bar. The only reason he was working there in the first place, and the only reason that Cody was a towel boy was because he had maxed out the cards that the school had given them when they had first gotten on the boat. It paid for food and for their books and Zack blew it by spending money on smoothies for a bunch of girls. By now they had paid back what they owed, but there was always something else that Zack managed to break that caused the two of them to work more, but if I wasn't mistaken, I could swear that the two of them actually enjoyed their jobs.

It would but the first time that I saw Zack enjoy something other than chasing skirts.

"What's gotten you in a good mood?" I questioned, resting my arms on the counter.

"Nothing," Zack replied.

I wasn't convinced. The only thing that could usually get Zack to smile that much was the idea of getting a jet-pack, or going on a date with Megan Fox, either way, both of those dreams of his didn't seem like they were going to come true any time soon.

"Yeah right," I rolled my eyes. "Come on Zack, spill it. I promise I won't tell anyone." I smiled sweetly and batted my eyelashes, hoping that would get him to spill.

"Nice try," Zack laughed and pushed my arms off of the counter before stopping the blender and pouring my drink into a cup. "But that's not going to work." He slid my drink over to me. "Here you go."

"Thanks." I took my smoothie and took a large gulp, smiling at the taste. The Banana-Fofana was definitely the most popular drink from the smoothie bar, I had even seen grown women fight over them. As I went to put the smoothie down, it slipped from my hands and splashed onto the counter. "Darn!" I looked over at Zack with an apologetic look as I grabbed napkins and started to wipe it up. "I'm sorry, Zack."

"Hey, it's no problem." Zack pushed my hands away and looked around to make sure that no one was watching us. When he was sure, he held up a hand, his fist immediately bursting into flames. I watched in amazement as he pushed his hand forward and a small flame spread over the spilled smoothie and immediately disappeared. "There you go."

"Wow," I smiled up at Zack and sighed wistfully. "That's so cool; I wish I could do that."

"Trust me, it's not as glamorous as you would think," Zack grabbed a cup and started to rub a rag over it. "Cody and I, we got these powers when we were like, twelve, and it was cool at first. Being able to use fire and water for whatever we wanted, being able to manipulate it was like a dream for me." His smile faded. "But then it came to what we have to deal with now. WingzCorp caught wind that we're the strongest elementals of our time, Cody and I, and they've been after us for years. I don't think a day has gone by where I haven't been afraid that they would come bursting into the room and hurt my friends and family just to get to me."

"You said that you've had these powers since you were twelve." I stated and Zack nodded. "How did you figure out that you had them? When did Max and Tapeworm?"

Zack hesitated for a minute. "Sydney and his brothers and sisters, Riley, Rhuben, Patrick, and Noah, had all come to the Tipton. At the time it was under the cover that their father was working with our mom as a singer in the Tipton and that they were taking a break from their band. But then we found out that it was because they had powers, and had known that there were stronger ones in Boston."

"You and Cody" I stated.

"Right," Zack nodded. "But at the time we didn't know that it was us, we just thought that we were normal boys that wanted to ruin Mr. Moseby's day every chance we got. But one day I had witnessed Riley's fighting with Koto, she was pretty hurt. When Cody and I went to go see if she was ok, she then told me that Cody and I were elementals and everything grew from there." He shrugged. "We had to keep it a secret and they were also the ones that showed Max and Tapeworm that they were elementals as well."

"What made it that you guys are elementals?" I asked.

"A prophecy?" Zack shrugged. "I can't really explain it. All I know is that one in every five people are an elemental. Anything else you need to know you can just as Sydney."

"Well, how do you know that you're an elemental?" I questioned.

"You have an 'element mark'" Zack replied, using air quotes around the words. "Pretty much it's a symbol that is on your body to show that you're an elemental. Mine's on my shoulder, Cody's is as well."

"That's all that you need to prove that you're an elemental?" I questioned, my eyebrows furrowing together. "It can't be that simple."

"Do you want me to check to see if you have one?" Zack questioned, with a flirtatious lift to his voice. I rolled my eyes and got up from the stool I was sitting on. "You know I had to try."

"Yes, and it was a nice try, but there's no way that I would fall for something like that." I gave a short wave. "Later, Zack."

"Wait!" I turned around and Zack was looking at me seriously. "Who's watching over Koto right now?"

"Sydney and Crystal are," I replied, thinking really hard of the schedule that we had written up. "But it's going to be yours and Cody's turn again soon." I turned and walked to my room, my mind whirling with many questions and with the facts that I knew about elementals so far. It still made no sense to me as to why I wasn't an elemental.

"Maybe I'm just not meant to be one," I muttered to myself, stretching myself across the bed, resting my head against the pillows and staring at the low ceiling. "Maybe I'm not meant to help."

_"Or maybe you're supposed to help in a different way." _I sat up and looked around for the source of the voice, but I didn't see anything. _"You're more important than you think Bailey, and I'm going to show you how_."

Before I could do anything, the room glowed a bright light, so bright that I had to cover my face to make sure that I didn't go blind. When I pulled my arms away, I wasn't on the ship; at least, I didn't think I was. But this was definitely my room, my things were still there, but it seemed to have been burnt. Everything in the room was burnt.

I turned in a slow circle and surveyed the room. Everything was destroyed.

Wait.

Where was London?

Quickly, I turned and grabbed onto the door handle and wrenched the door open. I gasped in shock when I saw that the hallway seemed to be an empty shell, like everything on the inside had been blown out. There seemed to be no one around at all. Suddenly, an explosion rocked the boat and I was thrown off of my feet and onto the floor. The shockwave from the first explosion pushed me further down the hall and faintly, I could hear someone shouting. They sounded like they were in pain. Quickly, I got to my feet and ran all the way to the Sky Deck as fast as I could. When I got there I gasped out loud. The boat seemed to be like it was Swiss cheese, there were holes everywhere, and some were still steaming.

I covered my mouth with my hands and tried my hardest not to puke. There were dead bodies of the passengers laying everywhere. It seemed to me that they had been caught in the blast as well, their clothes were steaming and some people's clothes were completely burnt away. The smell of burning flesh was in the air and it was very hard not to puke at that moment. As I continued to gaze around, there was a sudden gust of wind that tugged at me, pushing me towards the edge of the boat. I looked up and saw two objects in the sky getting closer and closer to the ship. As I watched the figures became clearer and I could see that it was Zack and Cody. Their wings were showing and they flapped gently in the air as they gazed around at the ship.

"ZACK! CODY!" I screamed.

They couldn't hear me.

Or I wasn't really there.

I couldn't really be sure.

"Unfortunately we didn't have a choice but to get everyone caught up in the blast." Zack muttered, wiping his hands over his face. It was surprising, he seemed to be crying and I had never seen Zack cry before.

"We didn't have a choice," Cody added, shaking his head. Tears were falling silently down his cheeks and that didn't surprise me at all. Cody was always the more sensitive one, I could tell even before I had even personally gotten to know Zack and Cody. "We knew that when we started this, that there were always going to be people that would end up getting hurt." He shook his head again. "I just didn't think that the SS Tipton would be the place when that happened."

"I'm surprised the boat is still standing," Zack remarked as an afterthought, as if the shock hadn't hit him yet. "It seems to me that it would sink as soon as it was hit."

"With a blast like that, I'm surprised as well."

"_Do you understand, Bailey?"_

"No!" I shook my head. "No, I don't understand!" Tears started to fall down my face. "Why did you make me see this? How am I supposed to stop this?"

_"You're more important than you think, Bailey Pickett. Don't forget that. You were meant to find out about the elements for a reason. You can keep something like this from happening. Don't give up hope, Bailey Pickett._" The bright light started to glow again and before I knew it, I was back in my room, lying on my back on the bed.

I sat up and looked around; everything in the room was just as it had been before. No burn marks, no sound of explosions, nothing, everything was fine.

There was a firm knock on the door and before I could say anything it opened and Tapeworm poke his head in, looking serious.

"You've got to come with me; Koto is ready to explain everything to us."

* * *

**A/N: So what's up with Bailey? I know what it is, but what are you guys' guesses. The action picks up in the next few chapters and the adventure really gets going there. To answer your question tiger002, yes the Jacksons had been a part of WingzCorp when they were young, but then they left after they had found it to be something that they didn't want to be a part of. Any other questions? Something I didn't make very clear? Anything you guys would like to see? Constructive Criticism is welcome.**

**-Riley**


	16. I'm in this now you can't stop me

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

* * *

"So why is it that you've come back?" Crystal demanded, getting straight to the point. Koto just flicked his eyes over to her and ran his fingers through his blonde hair before focusing on the wall behind us. "What is it that you want with us? What's so different this time?"

"No need to rush me, I'll get to it." Koto stated calmly. "I have to explain a bit about myself and WingzCorp first."

"Well get on with it!" Crystal stated coolly.

I smiled a little as I watched the exchange between the two of them. It was obvious that the two of them didn't trust each other; I could see that from the first time that I had seen the two of them in the room. I didn't understand it at first, but then Tapeworm explained to me that since Crystal's guardian was a tiger she had taken in its attributes, and because Koto was a wolf they didn't get along at all. Yet, Riley was a wolf as well and they got along more often than not.

We were all sitting in our meeting room, waiting for Koto to tell us what was going on. I looked over at Sydney, who had his legs crossed and his chin in his hands. He didn't have any emotion swirling in his eyes, although everyone else looked as anxious as I had ever seen them. He obviously knew what was going to be said, but didn't want to ruin anything either. Zack's hands were drumming on his knees, eyes set in a glare, and Cody was leaning back against the couch, his arms crossed over his chest, staring at Koto. I looked at Crystal, who was sitting beside him, and noticed that she was sitting the same way he was. Quickly, I looked over at Max and saw her glaring as well, Tapeworm was the only one that seemed to be relaxed.

"Where do you want me to start?" Koto questioned.

"From the very beginning," Cody stated, interrupting Zack who had started to speak. "When you joined WingzCorp and everything after that." He instructed. Koto looked at him with a curious expression on his face and then rubbed his chin in thought.

"For those of you that don't know, Kuroko is my brother," Koto stated, to start off the story. "And he's probably the only person that I fell is family to me. My mother died when I was really young and my dad didn't like me or Kuroko." He smiled grimly, chuckling a little, although his laughter was bitter. "For whatever reason, my dad found amusement in smacking us around when his friends were with him. I guess he was trying to prove himself to be a man in front of his friends." Koto's eyes flashed over to Sydney. I followed his gaze and was surprised to find that Sydney actually looked like his age. He looked panic-stricken, as if he had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "The only time he left us alone was when family came by," he shrugged. "Kagenui is my cousin and he knew what was going on with us, even though we never admitted it."

"Well, one day, when we were still kids, Kuroko and I came back to our house to find our father dead." Koto actually smiled, his canines poking out of the corners of his mouth. For a second I saw him as a little kid, smiling happily, but the image went away quickly. "I can't say that I was upset about it, actually Kuroko and I didn't seem to have any sort of emotion towards him being dead, he was just gone. That night an older man had approached us telling us that he was sorry for what happened to us."

"Core" Crystal stated with a nod.

"Right," Koto affirmed. "But he was going by a different name, come to think of it I don't really think that Core is his name either as he went by different names every time he was recruiting us for something. I'm getting off topic," he patted his pockets and pulled out a cigarette and a lighter. He stuck his cigarette in his mouth and paused as he pushed the lighter closer to his lips. "Is this going to offend anyone?" he questioned sarcastically.

"Just open a window," Zack stated lazily. "But don't forget that I can cause it to blow up in your mouth if I want to." He smiled evilly.

Koto looked at the cigarette in his mouth and must have decided that it wasn't worth it as he spit the cigarette to the floor, not even bothering to retrieve it. He cleared his throat. "So Core said that he could help Kuroko and me, to have a place to live and things to eat. We were never good with other kids and knew that an orphanage wasn't going to help us, so we went with him. Before I knew it, I had a mask being put over my face and I was falling asleep. When I woke up, I didn't remember anything from that had happened before, all I knew was that I was following orders from Core and that I was going to try and capture what he called elementals."

"I knew that Kuroko was with me, but I didn't know that Kagenui was there with us as well, or that he had already started to recruit the others that will eventually become the DarkLions, DragonGang, and Spirit-X. After a lot of very grueling strength trainings and mercy killings-"

"Mercy killings?" I repeated at the same time that Max had said it.

My mouth hung wide open with shock and my eyes must have been the size of dinner plates. I was very shocked with what he had just told me, more shocked than when I found out about Zack and Cody being elementals.

"Did…did you seriously…" I couldn't find my voice. Actually, I couldn't bear to ask the question that hung in the air. He actually killed people? With no remorse for their families or how their lives were going to be changed?

"Yes, I killed people," Koto stated with a slight roll of his eyes. "And I'm not the only one." Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sydney squirm in his seat, but couldn't find my voice. "Anyone that was in WingzCorp had to kill someone at one point or another. Anyway, after a while of working under Core, we were sent out on our first assignment to try and capture someone that was able to control the power of wind. I didn't understand how it was possible for someone to do that, and I also didn't understand how I was supposed to be able to fight them if they were able to control the power of the wind. But I went anyway."

"So I followed his orders, which I can't disclose completely, and went to fight him. He didn't want to fight me at first because I was still just a kid, only eleven years old or so, I really don't remember. But after taunting him for a bit, I didn't want to go back to Core not following his orders. You made sure that you never upset Core or you got the worst kind of punishment imaginable." Koto shifted in his seat and brought his knees up to his chest, looking around sharply, as if he had just heard something. After a couple of seconds he finally settled down and started again. "So the guy started to fight me and I was getting my ass kicked pretty badly. But then all of a sudden I felt funny, like stronger, stronger than I have ever been. My hands had turned into paws, as well as my feet, my senses were heightened and I felt restless. I started fighting him again and I actually started winning. And before I knew it, I had turned into a wolf and was savagely beating the guy."

I winced at the thought and squirmed a little. Koto looked over at me, his eyes flashing what seemed to be despair, before he started again. "Long story short, I ended up killing him. I didn't mean to, I couldn't control myself at the time. But when I got back to WingzCorp I was reprimanded and punished badly. I wasn't supposed to let him die; I was supposed to bring him back to WingzCorp so he could be used for Core. But shortly afterwards Core sent me and Reihu out to try and lure in-"

"Wait a minute!" Zack interrupted, suddenly sitting up. "What you're saying is…you're _not_ an elemental?"

"No," Koto shook his head.

"You're not?" Cody repeated. He sounded unconvinced, as if he could hear something in Koto's voice that the rest of us couldn't hear.

"No," Koto repeated firmly. "I'm not an elemental. No one in WingzCorp is elementals. We don't have the same powers that you do and we're only able to use the attributes that we were given."

"But you said that you weren't and elemental," Tapeworm protested. "And only elementals are able to use the attributes of the animals of the guardian that they were given." His eyes narrowed. "And you just said that you were able to use the attributes of-"

"What I was given." Koto repeated himself.

"I don't get it," Max stated, shaking her head. I could tell that she was voicing everyone's thoughts as they were looking around in confusion. Sydney suddenly sighed loudly and leaned back against the back of the couch, taking his chin from his hands.

"He means that he was given the abilities of a wolf," he explained quietly. "They were surgically implanted into him as well as everyone else that works in WingzCorp. Everyone at WingzCorp was split into the BlackWolves, the DarkLions, DragonGang, and Spirit-X because those were the animals that they were all injected with."

"Core took a bunch of little kids from their families and forcefully implanted animals into them to use them for his own gain?" I gasped. "That's just cruel! How could he do such a thing?"

"It's easy," Sydney sounded bitter as he shrugged. "He's something that wants to have as much power as possible and this was one of the few ways that he was able to do it. At least that was the only way that he thought that he could do it, but there are probably other humane ways to get it done."

"Exactly." Koto nodded.

"Wow," Crystal muttered. "Go on, I'm sure there's still more to this story."

"Of course there is," Koto sounded unlike his cocky self now. He sounded…sad. And that is generally a word that you wouldn't describe Koto as from what Zack and Cody told me. Sadistic, sarcastic, and inhumane maybe, but not sad. "Long story short, Core caught wind of some strong elementals and wanted us to capture them." He looked over at Sydney again, who nodded. "And that's where the Jacksons come in. Shortly after their parents died Core sent out Kagenui, Ruliyan, Raylen, and the person that used to be the leader of DragonGang, no one knows where he is anymore, out to talk to them. It was easy to bring them into WingzCorp and instead of Core killing them to try and take their powers for himself, as they were thought to be the strongest elementals of the time, Core decided to use them against every elemental out there."

"Here's where the story gets a little tricky, as Riley and Rhuben were working for the BlackWolves and DarkLions, but they were so strong that they didn't need their guardians in battle. So Core took them, but they didn't really notice. But as time went on they realized that what WingzCorp was doing something they didn't agree with and they took their brothers, took back their guardians, which Core had captivated to see how they work, and ran off and we had been chasing after them ever since. They fled to Boston and the rest is history." He shrugged.

There was an uncomfortable silence in the room.

'_I can't understand how any of that happened,_' I thought to myself, shaking my head. '_It seems so hard to believe that that's what's happened, but it has. Koto and the others, they were taken away from their families, and Sydney's parents are dead and he was somewhat brainwashed by Core. It's all so confusing.'_

I looked up at Sydney and saw him looking around the room with a cautious expression on his face before he slid off of the couch and got onto the floor, resting his head in Crystal's lap and curling up into a ball, hiding his face in his hands, as if he was afraid to see our reactions.

"But what do you need us for now?" Cody asked his voice strangely calm. "You said you were trying to get us for our own good."

"Yes," Koto cracked his knuckles. "We thought that WingzCorp was the only group out there that wanted to capture the elementals but we were wrong, there's another group called Halo Syndicate." He shook his head, his fringe flying around. "I can't tell you everything about what they are doing, but I can tell you that they are much stronger than we are. Core left us at WingzCorp to try and learn about them; all he said in parting was that we had to find you guys because you were going to be able to help us."

"Ha!" Max snorted. "There's no way that we're going to help you!"

"We don't have a choice." Zack muttered. I looked over at him in shock. That definitely couldn't be the Zack that I knew and barely tolerated. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he looked like he was going to hate what he had to say. "If what he says is true, then I think that we should help him. We can't take any chances when it comes to Halo Syndicate, if they're really that powerful."

"But how can we believe him?" Max snapped at him, her eyes flashing dangerously.

'_Yeah, how can we trust him?_' I asked myself the same question. '_It's not like he has proven himself to be worthy of friendship or anything to these guys._'

"Because Sydney believes him," Zack replied and nodded over to the little boy that still had his hands over his face. "The only reason that he would be hiding his face like that is because he is remembering everything that he knew about WingzCorp and everything that Koto had done to them over the years." He licked his lips as Sydney slowly sat up and looked at him. "He hates everything that he has done while he was in WingzCorp and he hates the fact that Codes, Max, Tape, and I were brought into this just because they were a part of it. But he believes Koto about the Halo Syndicate deal, but he already knew." Sydney continued to stare at him. "Am I right?"

"Yes," Sydney replied after a second of silence.

"Syd," Crystal gently turned his head towards her as she looked down into her cousins' eyes. "If you knew, why didn't you tell anyone? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I had to be sure that I was exactly sure first," Sydney replied calmly. "Even though I'm 10 I still know a lot, and I've had to grow up fast. And I think you'd have to agree that I have a good sense of whether or not I should tell someone something until I know for sure that it's a good idea."

"You're right about that." Tapeworm remarked.

"And that's why Riley, Rhuben, Patrick, and Noah aren't here." Zack continued to explain, breathing quietly. "They're out trying to find out as much as they can about Halo Syndicate."

"How'd you know that?" Cody demanded as he turned to his twin brother. "You and I, we tell each other everything, and you didn't tell me about this." He looked hurt, more hurt than I had ever seen him. Sure Zack teased him a lot and called him names a lot but he never took offense them. Now, when things were getting serious, more serious than it had ever been for them, their relationship was change as well. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Blazen had overheard them and told me," Zack replied, his eyes on his brother. "But I didn't want to say anything just in case he heard wrong. Plus I knew that Sydney was going to explain it as soon as he knew whether or not that it was to be told."

"But…" Cody trailed off and shook his head.

"What are the rest of your guys going to do?" Tapeworm questioned, bringing the focus off of Zack and Cody. I saw Cody flash him a smile of thanks and Tapeworm nodded in reply.

"Right," Crystal's eyes narrowed again. "Now that we have you, how come they haven't come after us for anything?"

"They know that we were going to have to tell you what was going on at one point or another, so they haven't come to find me for that reason alone." Koto suddenly lifted his head, his green eyes suddenly shifting around. As I watched, his eyes turned from normal human ones to a lighter green, almost yellow, and that tipped me off that he was taking on some of his wolf powers. "He's here!" he hissed, a low growl starting at the back of his throat.

"What?" Max blinked. "Who's here? Who is it?"

Koto didn't reply, instead he leapt to his feet and rushed out the door. I could hear his footsteps fading rapidly.

"Come on," Sydney stood up, looking stricken. "He's going to need our help." He held out his hand. "Unfading Promise!" He called and in a steady light blue glow, a staff appeared in his hand. "Come on!" He ran out of the room, and everyone else sprang to action behind him.

"Bailey, wait here!" Cody called as he paused at the door.

"No," I stated firmly, shaking my head. "I'm coming with you guys!"

"Bailey," Cody walked back across the room and grabbed my shoulders, gently shaking me. "It's too dangerous for you to-"

"Cody," I pushed his hands away from my shoulders and looked him right in the eye, silently daring him to tell me to stay put. "I'm in this now; you're not going to stop me from going."

I knew that I had to go with them, something was telling me too. I immediately thought of the voice that had spoken to me earlier. I had to know whose voice it was and I know that I was going to be able to help my friends somehow. I didn't want to just sit on the sidelines and watch as my friends, and maybe some innocent bystanders got hurt.

Cody stared at me, his eyes searching mine and finally he sighed heavily and lowered his head, so his hair fell into his face. "I'm going to regret this." He stated before lifting his head again. "Come on." He grabbed onto my wrist and we ran all the way to the top of the boat. I looked around and noticed that none of the passengers were moving. They were frozen. "Sydney used the Spirits of Time to freeze the passengers so they couldn't see what we were going to do." Cody explained quickly. "The passengers won't know that they have stopped moving or that anything is different when Sydney unfreezes them again."

All of a sudden I heard a loud, guttural scream of agony and looked up just in time to see Crystal being hit with a blast of energy from someone floating in the air. I couldn't see who it was, but as Crystal went unconscious and started to fall back to the ground, my breath caught in my throat.

_The boat seemed to be like it was Swiss cheese, there were holes everywhere, and some were still steaming. I covered my mouth with my hands and tried my hardest not to puke. There were dead bodies of the passengers laying everywhere. It seemed to me that they had been caught in the blast as well, their clothes were steaming and some people's clothes were completely burnt away. The smell of burning flesh was in the air and it was very hard not to puke at that moment. As I continued to gaze around, there was a sudden gust of wind that tugged at me, pushing me towards the edge of the boat. I looked up and saw two objects in the sky getting closer and closer to the ship. As I watched the figures became clearer and I could see that it was Zack and Cody. Their wings were showing and they flapped gently in the air as they gazed around at the ship._

_"ZACK! CODY!" I screamed._

_They couldn't hear me._

_Or I wasn't really there._

_I couldn't really be sure._

_"Unfortunately we didn't have a choice but to get everyone caught up in the blast." Zack muttered, wiping his hands over his face. It was surprising, he seemed to be crying and I had never seen Zack cry before._

_"We didn't have a choice," Cody added, shaking his head. Tears were falling silently down his cheeks and that didn't surprise me at all. Cody was always the more sensitive one, I could tell even before I had even personally gotten to know Zack and Cody. "We knew that when we started this, that there were always going to be people that would end up getting hurt." He shook his head again. "I just didn't think that the SS Tipton would be the place when that happened."_

_"I'm surprised the boat is still standing," Zack remarked as an afterthought, as if the shock hadn't hit him yet. "It seems to me that it would sink as soon as it was hit."_

_"With a blast like that, I'm surprised as well."_

It was just like my dream (or whatever it was). I never saw the person that Zack and Cody had been fighting but I knew it must have been this guy, or someone else that was associated with him, because I was getting the same feeling of helplessness that I felt before.

"Crystal!" Cody cried and jumped up into the air as wings slid down from his back. He flew towards her before I could stop him.

"Cody, don't!" I cried, biting my lower lip as I watched him and the others go up to meet the person that had hurt their friend. Koto was already lying on the Sky Deck, unconscious, looking the most peaceful that I had ever seen him.

If Zack and Cody had trouble defeating Koto from time to time and Koto was easily knocked out, as well as Crystal, then this guy was strong.

'_I know I should have told them what I saw when I had the chance_' I thought worriedly. '_I would have been able to warn him about how strong this guy was. Now what am I going to do?_'

* * *

"Patrick, stop flying around like that!" Rhuben snapped from the back of DeathLiger as Patrick flew up and down and around her, Riley, and Noah in circles, causing her to become dizzy. "You're being distracting."

"I'm sorry," Patrick didn't sound sorry, nor did he have an apologetic look on his face as he slowly flew up and glided next to Noah. "But we've been flying for hours, and I'm getting kind of bored. I need to entertain myself somehow."

"Pat, we're looking for Syd and the others, not watching a documentary." Riley replied with a clipped tone, rolling her eyes. "Belt up!"

Noah smiled.

Patrick, Noah, Riley, and Rhuben had taken off in the early hours of the morning after asking Sydney where the SS Tipton was and was now on their way back to their friends. It was true, DalFang, DeathLiger, Patrick, and Noah had all been flying for hours and they were starting to get tired. But they knew that they couldn't stop until they were back with their brother and his friends, and they could feel that they were getting closer. They had begun to sense Sydney's energy about an hour ago as they started to fly over the Atlantic Ocean and it was getting stronger by the minute.

"Sorry, I'm just trying to put some sort of amusement in your lives." Patrick continued, his dragon wings gently brushing over Noah's.

"Trust me on this, Pat," Noah stated in his quiet tone. "Our lives have been nothing but eventful ever since we awakened."

As soon as he finished speaking all of them were pushed back by a large force of energy. Riley and Rhuben held on tightly to their guardians as they were threatened to be knocked off of them. Patrick and Noah went reeling back, but were able to regain their stability.

"Something tells me we found them," Patrick remarked, brushing his hair back down.

"Something tells me your right." Noah agreed calmly. He looked grim. "If I'm not mistaken, it's one of those that have been looking for all this time."

"Rhu and I will take care of it then," Riley replied and nudged DalFang in the sides with her knees as Rhuben did the same to DeathLiger.

The two guardians suddenly dive-bombed out of the sky, Patrick and Noah flying close behind them, just in case they were needed. As they neared the source of the energy they immediately recognized the SS Tipton. Another wave of energy went shooting towards them and they were pushed back a little, but continued to charge forward. As they got closer and closer, they saw Zack, Sydney, Cody, and some girl on the deck of the boat, the others unconscious.

A male, about the age of 22 was sending wave after wave of some sort of energy towards them and Zack, Cody, and Sydney were deflecting them the best they could, but from where they were, Riley, Rhuben, Patrick, and Noah could tell that they were getting tired. Suddenly, the male turned around (they still weren't able to see his face, no matter how fast they were closing in) and shot his attack towards them. Patrick and Noah quickly flew about 40 feet into the air and DeathLiger and DalFang dodged it the best they could.

"This guy is strong." Rhuben murmured.

"I was about to say the same thing." Riley agreed. "You're going to have to use one of your stronger attacks, guys."

"Got it" DalFang and DeathLiger harmonized as they started to glow red and purple.

"Chaos of Destruction!" DeathLiger released one of his strongest attacks, aiming it right towards the male.

"Fires Burning in Hell!" DalFang opened his mouth and a huge fireball erupted from his mouth and mixed in with DeathLiger's attack, creating one huge ball of energy and shot it towards the male.

He just smirked and disappeared from sight, the attack continued to go and head towards the boat.

"Oh no!" Patrick cried.

"Shit" Riley muttered.

On the Sky Deck Sydney reacted quickly. "Spirit Shield – Maximum!" Sydney cried and waved his staff in a large arc, glowing blue with energy as he levitated off of the ground. As the attack got closer, his shield wrapped itself around the SS Tipton and closed just in time for the attack to hit. The attack continued to roar against Sydney's shield before disappearing. He fell to his knees, breathing heavily, barely at the edge of consciousness.

"Nice job, Syd." Zack smiled and patted him on the back.

"Thanks." Sydney gave a smile and closed his eyes as he pitched forward, but Noah quickly swooped down and grabbed him before he hit the ground.

"You did good, Little Man." Noah smiled as he hugged his brother.

"Hey." Patrick gave an enthusiastic wave, as if Zack and Cody didn't just fight a guy that was the strongest they had ever faced. Exhaustion overtook the two boys and, like Sydney and the others, they fell unconscious. "Must have taken a lot out of them."

"Shut up, Patrick." Riley and Rhuben replied.

* * *

Later in his cabin, Zack opened his eyes and immediately a felt a presence by the side of his bed. His eyes shifted over and he blinked rapidly for a few seconds before smiling weakly at Riley, who just looked back at him. She raised an eyebrow and spoke.

"So I find it funny that the first time you figured out you were an elemental I was in the bed and you were by my bedside," she commented as if she was saying that the wind was blowing outside. "And now you just fought someone that was really strong and the roles are reversed. The only difference is that you already know that you're an elemental."

Zack chuckled and sat up gently. ""Hi," he greeted. Same as always.

"Hey." Riley replied simply. She raised her arms as if to say 'ta da' and then shrugged. "Here I am." She stated.

"Yeah," Zack fell silent as he looked at her. There was a silence that stretched on and he wasn't sure whether or not it was comfortable or awkward, it seemed to be in the middle. He was used to silences from her. She had been gone away for a while and he didn't know when she was going to come back. They had an odd relationship and now he wasn't sure if it was going to change. "How have you been?" He questioned.

"I've been ok." Riley replied with a nod, vague as ever. She looked away from him and out the porthole. "How about yourself?"

"Better now…" He said smiling with a bit of hesitation.

"Why?" She asked raising an eyebrow.

"Because I found you." Zack replied sincerely.

Riley abruptly stood up and walked to the door, acting as if she hadn't heard him. But Zack knew that she had heard him loud and clear.

He also knew that she wasn't going to acknowledge it, she wasn't even going to mention about how she had left things between the two of them. She was just like that and he didn't know why he expected her to change. But a little part of him had been waiting for this moment for months, hoping that things would have changed between the two of them, that she would have been at least happy to see him. Maybe she was happy, she was never one to really show her emotions and he had gotten used to that. But it would be nice to know what she was thinking every now and then.

"I better let you get your rest," she stopped at the door and turned back to look at him. "There's a lot of stuff that we need to tell you guys."

"I don't doubt it." Zack replied.

* * *

**A/N: And there's the next chapter where everyone is together again. I hope you guys liked it, one of my longest ones yet and I really enjoyed explaining Koto and a little bit of WingzCorp. I hope you guys did too. Any questions? Comments? Something that doesn't make sense? Constructive Criticism is welcome.**

**Tiger002 – You don't have to have an elemental 'awaken' you to be awakened. Usually it's in a heightened sense of danger. Zack, Cody, Max, and Tapeworm just happened to have the Jacksons awaken them. As for the 1 in every 5 people are an elemental, this will be explained soon. :)**

**I'll update again soon. The SLOZAC Episode Collection will be updated soon.**

**-Riley**


	17. Zack in love? She wants to mate

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

* * *

Riley, Rhuben, Patrick, and Noah explained to us everything that had been happening to them in the past few months and everything they knew about Halo Syndicate (which wasn't a lot). All they knew was that Halo Syndicate was a bunch of people that used to work with WingzCorp, they were filled with people of all ages while WingzCorp usually focused on young kids to teenagers, and that Halo Syndicate broke away for unknown reasons. This was only after Zack had healed from the battle before (which was fairly quick, to which Crystal explained to me that elementals heal much faster than humans do.) I'm guessing it was supposed to clear up some things about elements for me.

But it just caused me to become even more interested in everything that was going on in the elemental world, along with the information that I already knew from Zack and Cody, everything from the Jacksons caused my knowledge of everything to increase, but I still didn't know everything.

I don't think they did either.

"So we can't really tell you what Halo Syndicate is up to," Rhuben stated as we were gathered in the room once again. "But we've been tailgating them for a long time; all we know is that they're much stronger than anyone that we have ever faced before."

"Which brings me to the question," Riley stood up and crossed the room to Koto and looked down at him with an apathetic look on her face. "What are you doing here?" she scratched at her arm. "You seemed to give up a while ago, but knowing you," she snorted. "You never give up," she placed her hands on her hips. "So what? Did you finally let your guard down?"

Koto looked back up at her; his lips pursed slightly, his eyes held determination. I looked back and forth between the two of them; I knew that they used to work together, after what Koto had told us, but I wasn't sure how they actually interacted with each other.

"Well, what had happened was-"Zack interrupted Koto.

"We kicked his and Kagenui's butt!" He declared, throwing a taunting smile Koto's way. "And so we captured Koto and brought him here."

"In case you don't remember correctly," Crystal spoke up, her eyes rested on Zack. "Sydney and I had to help you out, and it wasn't that you beat their butts, I had frozen them in a block of ice, Kagenui broke out and got away, and Koto was the one that sacrificed himself to make sure that his cousin and everyone else at WingzCorp got away." She explained and smirked a little. "If you're thinking of trying to impress her," she nodded over to her cousin. "I figured you would have given up by now."

I smiled a little when I saw Zack deflate in embarrassment.

"So you willingly came here?" Patrick asked, raising his eyebrow. "I don't believe that for a second," he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "You wouldn't give yourself up that easily." He snorted. "At least, usually you wouldn't."

"You're right about that," Koto remarked with a twitch of his eyebrow. He lifted a cigarette from his pocket and started to light it with a lighter, but Riley grabbed it out of his hand and threw it onto the ground, crushing it with her foot.

Koto stared back up at her and she held her hand out, staring hard at him.

Koto sighed and reached into his pocket, pulling out his box of cigarettes and handed it to her. Riley held it in her hands and, to my amazement; they instantly burst into flames and turned to ash before I even blinked. She dropped the handful of ash to the floor and dragged her foot through that as well.

"Anyway," Rhuben broke the silence as she stood up and stretched. "We can finish talking about this later," her mouth twitched to the side. "Right now, we have to figure out where we're going to stay," she motioned to herself and her brothers. "And what we're going to do about him." She pointed to Koto, who looked bored.

"Thank You," I turned and saw that Riley was talking to Crystal. Her cousin's eyebrows twitched and Riley continued. "Thank you for taking care of Syd for us, while we were gone." She took a short breath. "You did a good job."

A look of surprise flashed through Crystal's eyes and then it passed quickly. "You're welcome."

With that, we all got up and left the small room and went back to doing what we were doing before. Zack went back to work, knowing that Mr. Moseby was going to yell at him soon, or claim that he was being lazy. Koto came along with Cody and me, because it was our turn to watch him, and he was in his wolf form, padding around the boat with us. I'm surprised that no one had asked why there was a wolf on board, but I'm sure that it was only because many people say him as a wolf-dog hybrid, not as a complete wolf.

But it still caused us to be on our toes, and from what Tapeworm explained to me, it was always a good idea to be on your guard no matter where you are. I asked Cody about this and he agreed, saying that even though they had never been attacked in broad day light they shouldn't not expect it. I mean, a couple days ago we had been attacked, and Sydney was only able to put up a shield just in time.

I can't even begin to think what would happen if he wasn't able to put up the shield in time.

I tried going back to my homework, but the numbers that were sitting on the page just caused me to get a headache and to refer back to elementals and the tests that Sydney has.

What kind of numbers did he have associated with it?

What kind of tests did he run?

How many elementals were there in the world?

"Wow, I haven't seen Zack so depressed before," I heard Cody remarked and looked over my shoulder at the Easy Squeezee to see that he was right. Zack didn't seem to be enjoying his job like he usually did. "And I would have thought that Riles being back on the boat would have lifted his mood a little."

"What do you mean?" I asked, grabbing Cody's attention.

"Did you notice in the room when Zack was bragging about having easily defeated Kagenui and Koto?" Cody asked and I nodded. An amused smile curled onto his lips. "Its common knowledge and not a well kept secret that Zack is and always has been in love with Riley." He shrugged. "Probably ever since he met her."

"Aww, that's so sweet." I gushed and then thought about it. '_Zack? In love? I never thought that that would ever happen._' "But, does she feel the same way?"

"Definitely not," Cody laughed in reply. "All she does it turn him down again and again and again. But he doesn't stop and I'm surprised that she hasn't ever filed for a restraining order or anything."

I thought back to it.

Then I remembered the conversation between Riley and Crystal.

"So, what's up with Crystal and her cousins?" I asked as Cody and I sat at a table on the Sky Deck, Koto sitting at our feet on the ground, his head on his paws, growling at anyone that got too close. "They don't act very happy to be around each other." I thought it over as Cody lifted his head from his math book to look at me. We were supposed to be doing out homework, but I was starting not to care about it much anymore.

I know, me, Bailey Pickett, not caring about schoolwork.

But ever since I found out that Zack and Cody are elementals, nothing seems as important.

"Actually," I rested my arms on the table in front of me. "I think only Crystal, Patrick, Noah, and Sydney like each other."

"You'd probably be right," Cody stated, abandoning his homework as well. "They have an odd relationship, there are times when they're really happy with each other, there are times where they hate each other's guts, and there are times, like now, where they are neutral with each other." Cody brushed his hair out of his face as the salty wind blew it.

I looked around the Sky Deck at that point and felt sad. I thought of all of the people on the boat and how a lot of them could possibly be elementals but either didn't know it, or didn't want to show themselves.

"Why's that?" I asked, turning back to Cody.

He let out a sigh and shrugged. "It's like Koto said, when the Jacksons were young, their parents died in a fire," he squirmed a little, a sure sign that he was hiding something, but I didn't want to push him. "And they're jealous of the fact that Crystal has a father. Yet," he held an up a finger. "Crystal is jealous of the fact that she doesn't have any blood siblings, although she takes great care of a boy that her father adopted, named Aaron, who is also Sydney's best friend."

"So they want what each other has" I stated with a nod, finally getting it.

"Exactly," Cody confirmed. "Christian, Crystal's father, has offered to adopt them, but they always refuse, saying they're better on their own." Cody shrugged. "And in a way they are. Riley and Rhuben have been taking care of their brothers for such a long time that they don't trust anyone else to take care of them." He smiled a little. "That's what I admire most about those two; they always care about others before themselves."

"You and Riley and Rhuben…"

"They used to live in the Tipton with us," Cody stated as his smile grew. "The four of us, we used to get into a lot of trouble." He looked sad. "They were our best friends."

"Were?" I repeated.

"That's not all," Koto spoke up from under the table. I looked down to see Koto quickly turn from his wolf form to his human form and crawl out from under the table, sitting in an empty chair. "I'll tell you something that you don't know about Cody," I looked over at Cody, who was looking back at Koto with narrowed eyes. "Zack isn't the only player in his family."

"What?" I asked with a startled laugh. "Do you mean a player like a person who participates in or is skilled at some game?" I rattled off. I don't really know why I was rambling, but for whatever reason, I didn't want to know what Koto had to say. "Someone who plays a musical instrument? A theatrical performer? A-"

"Wow, you're even more boring than Cody." Koto remarked, sounding much like Zack. "No, what I mean is he used to date Rhuben and Crystal."

I stared at him as Cody gritted his teeth at Koto, glaring at him. Slowly, I turned my head and looked at Cody. "You…you dated _both_ of them?" I asked quietly. I felt something hurt in my chest, but pushed the thought of pain away. This didn't sound like Cody.

"Well, yeah," Cody wrung his hands together. "But not at the same time," he shot another glare towards Koto. "I dated Rhuben…then we mutually broke up for a friend of ours, and then I dated Crystal and…she broke up with me."

"Why?" I asked.

"I don't really know, "Cody shrugged. "But she's still special to me, a good friend."

'_She's still special to him_?' I shook my head, trying to wrap my mind around the thought. '_So he must still have feelings for each other, I mean he __has__ been spending a lot of time with her lately. And she is really smart, almost as smart as Cody is. I guess they have a lot in common._'

Koto suddenly stiffened as he sniffed loudly, looking around. "That's odd, I smell…" Koto whispered under his breath and looked around still. Then his eyes landed on something and they widened and an animalistic growl came out of his mouth. Quickly, he slapped his hands over his mouth, as if he didn't want to have done that.

"What's wrong?" Cody followed his gaze and I did as well.

"It's only Patrick and Riley" I stated as I watched them buy smoothies from Zack. I watched as Zack said something to Riley with a flirtatious smile, she didn't seem to react at all, just handed him some money and turned around.

Patrick smiled at Zack and shrugged as before he took his smoothie and turned around as well. When he spotted us, his eyes lit up and he waved, nudged Riley, and the two of them started to walk over.

"Keep her away from me," Koto cried as he quickly backed up to the other side of the room. Riley looked at him as if he were crazy, his eyes were wide and they were shifting all over the deck rapidly, as if he was trying to find a way out. Then they rested on Riley again. "I'm serious, keep her away from me." His outburst had gotten some passengers' attention, as well as Zack's.

"Dude, what's your problem?" Zack questioned irritably.

"I'm guessing Koto is just a little cranky," Riley stated with an odd smile. "Being kept on this boat for a long time." She added and rolled her neck. "Next time we dock I'll let you walk around," she said it in an innocent tone, but I could hear an underlying tone of mocking. Suddenly she sniffed and looked around. "Does anyone smell raw meat? 'Cause I could really go for that right now."

She smiled and licked her lips.

Koto pointed a finger at Riley, his sharpened nail looking threatening, but it just Koto to be even more worried than he was before. "Dude, she's being nice, don't you think that's odd?" Koto demanded. "_And_ the fact that she wants raw, as in uncooked and salty, meat."

"For her, yeah." Cody agreed with a short nod. "Maybe it's PMS."

"No," Patrick shook his head. "She's already had her period this month," he explained. I looked at him, it was weird he didn't seem to be bothered by talking about it, when most boys would be totally grossed out. "So it's something else."

"Thanks" Riley grumbled, sitting down on a deck chair and crossing her legs. "I feel the love" she stated sarcastically, her eyes flashing. Patrick just smiled at her and Riley smirked back at him.

I guess in her way that meant she forgave him.

"Wow you guys are slow," Koto snorted. "Let me spell this one out for you guys," he cracked his knuckles, as he slid even further away from Riley. "She's a wolf right?" We nodded. "Meaning she's a dog," we all nodded again. "And because I'm sure that she has had no reason for her…" he looked uncomfortable for a second (this was the second time I had seen any emotion besides arrogance on his face). "Uh, girl parts to be removed, there's only one reason, as a dog, and that she could be acting this strange if she already had her…thing."

I was still confused, I had no idea what he was getting at, and apparently neither did anyone else. Zack's eyes kept trailing over to Riley but he would quickly look away. Cody was muttering something under his breath and then his eyes widened, he made an 'aha' sound, then his cheeks reddened.

"Ok, I don't know how to say this," Cody stammered, looking over at his friend. "But the only reason that Riley has been acting this way, and the reason that Koto is a little freaked out to be around her, is because she is in her estrous cycle."

"What?" Patrick asked, completely baffled.

I immediately got it.

"She's in Heat" I replied.

"Meaning?" Zack questioned, still not getting it.

"She wants to mate."

* * *

**A/N: I wanted this so Bailey figured out a little bit of what happened before the guys got on the boat, and I wanted to get more into things that everyone faces since they're part animal and this was the first thing that I could think of. I wanted to splash a little bit of humor in here as well. I hope you guys liked it. **

**-Riley**


	18. How'd I do that?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

* * *

"So what you're telling me is that Riley," Max grinned as she poked her friend in the cheek. "Her wolf side wants to mate?" She started laughing as Riley glared at her. "Never thought I'd see the day." She started laughing some more.

"I never thought that it would ever happen," Tapeworm commented from where he stood behind Sydney, looking at the numbers and graphs that were flying by his laptop. He rethought his sentence. "I mean, to Riley, I never thought that she would have problems with it."

"Are you saying that you and Max have…?" Cody trailed off his sentence as Tapeworm smiled back over at him. "Never mind, I don't think I want to know." He scratched his forehead, suddenly very uncomfortable. "But what I don't get is why does she want to mate now?"

"I don't want to mate with _anybody_!" Riley growled in annoyance.

"Apparently you do or I wouldn't be like this." Koto snapped back.

I looked around the room; Koto was sitting in the further corner away from Riley, his arms held protectively around his knees as he looked at her warily. I could only assume why he was acting very strange. He didn't want to mate with her, plus the way that growls continued to come out of his mouth showed that he was having a difficult time with it.

"So, what happens whenever a wolf wants to mate?" Crystal asked, scratching the side of her neck.

"I can answer that," Riley didn't look up as she spoke. "When we go into heat," she scratched the back of her neck and coughed. "We, ah... give off hormones..." she made a face, clearly uncomfortable. "To attract a mate..." She shifted a little and then looked over at Koto. "The only reason that he's freaking out about it, is because, apparently, it's very, very hard for him to resist the urges, as he is a male wolf, to mate with me."

"What?" Zack exploded, looking more jealous than I have ever seen him before. He looked at Koto with such contempt I'm surprised he didn't burst into flames. "There's no way in hell that I'm going to let that happen."

"I'm sure you wouldn't," Noah replied calmly before turning to his sister. "What I don't get is if you haven't had this happen before, how do you know about it?"

"Books," she replied with a shrug. "Plus common knowledge, there were a lot of things that I do as a wolf that makes plenty of sense, but to a human doesn't make sense at all." She then raised an eyebrow. "Same with you and Patrick, I'm sure at some point of your life you felt like you randomly wanted to burn down some buildings or something."

"Good point." Patrick nodded. "Plus it would make sense of Little Man's strange banana obsession." He looked over at his little brother, who smiled.

"How long is this going to last?" Rhuben asked, turning to Sydney as well.

Sydney typed something on his computer and then closed the lid, taking in a deep breath and letting it out, blowing his bangs off of his forehead. "Hard to say," he replied with a shrug. "Could be days, could be weeks." He lifted two fingers. "Probably two weeks at most." He wiped his hands off on his pants legs. "But I think that it would be best if we kept Riley and Koto apart for a while."

"I think that's a good idea, too." Zack agreed with a nod.

Riley snorted, appearing to slide back into her 'I'm-not-afraid-to-tell-it-like-it-is' personality as she looked at Zack. "Don't act like that."

"Excuse me?" Zack replied with a raised eyebrow.

"You-"

"We don't have time for you to get into a lover's spat right now," Tapeworm interrupted and then turned to Sydney again. "Is it just Koto that would have a problem with her being in heat, or is it any guy that will have a problem?"

"From what I could guess," Sydney hesitated for a second. "Logically it would be Koto, or Kagenui, or Kuroko, or Rilian, or Kotaro," he explained. "If any of them were here they would probably have the same problem. But, from what we've seen over the past few years, nothing that we think can be answered in a simple answer if ever truly simple."

"So we're just going to have to assume that anyone that Riley is comfortable around will be at risk of this," Cody stated with a nod. "Sounds reasonable, so what I think we should do is…wait," he looked over at his friend. "How are you going to get your schooling done?"

"Oh, since we're part Australian, and since Ri-Ri and Rhu-Rhu are already 17, they've finished school," Noah explained, brushing his hair out of his face. "They've been homeschooling us for a while."

"Wow," I nodded, impressed.

"It's not that great," Sydney denied with a teasing smirk directed towards his sisters. "They don't know nearly as much as I do, so them trying to teach me anything is really hard."

"Shut up, Little Man." Rhuben replied as she reached out and ran her fingers through his hair. She thought for a second. "What are we going to do with Koto then?"

"I don't care," Koto replied, holding his hands up defensively. "As long as I stay away from her for two weeks, I don't want to have to do it again." He looked passive as I looked over at him with wide eyes. "What?"

"You've…you've mated before?" I questioned.

It was kind of odd. I didn't think that a guy like him, someone who had a nasty streak as well as a sharp tongue and arrogant demeanor would mate with someone. But then again, he was part of WingzCorp and from what I've heard so far, WingzCorp was one of the most evil organizations that I have ever heard of.

"Not willingly," Koto replied with a casual shrug. "Shortly after they," he nodded towards the Jacksons. "left Core thought that of the idea of being able to train people to take our places if we died, and instead of snatching little kids and doing surgery on them like he used to, he thought of making us mate with people to see if the kids that were born would have the animal parts as well."

"So how many people have you mated with?" Crystal questioned, looking disturbed at the thought. But the question had to be asked.

"Five, maybe six." He replied, thinking about it for a second.

"Did it work?" Max asked, lightly tugging on her braided pig-tail.

"I don't know," Koto shrugged. "Shortly after we started was when we figured out about Halo Syndicate and Core left us."

"Alright," Cody spoke up again. "Here's what we're going to do," he turned to Riley. "For the next two weeks, you're going to stay in your cabin. Koto is going to stay in the secret room here, and the rest of us are going to continue to go on as if nothing is happening. We'll continue to take turns watching over Koto, to make sure that he doesn't try to contact his friends to attack us or something."

"Haven't you thought that if I wanted to do that, I would have done it by now?" Koto questioned, going back to his normal, arrogant, self.

"We can't take any chances," Cody stated, ignoring him. "In the mean time, Tapeworm, Crystal, Sydney, and I will continue to try and figure out anything that we can about Halo Syndicate."

"What about me?" I asked, kind of annoyed. Cody knew that I was smart, if not smarter, than he was, so I didn't see why I wouldn't be able to help them.

"Yeah, what about her?" Riley spoke up. "I know she's not an elemental, so why is she helping us at all?"

I took a step back, shocked by her sudden aggressiveness towards me. She didn't seem to have any problems with me when she had gotten on the boat a couple of days ago, but then again, she probably didn't really notice. Or she didn't care, but now she was glaring at me, looking as if she was threatened by me. Now I understood what Max meant earlier when I had first met her.

_"Not to start another war here," Cody raised his hands, trying to get everyone's attention before he gave Max and Tapeworm his full attention. "Why did you guys leave Boston?" Max and Tapeworm looked at each other in hesitation before looking over at me. "Don't worry, she knows everything."_

_"Everything?" Max repeated, looking skeptical._

_"Well, not everything," I replied quickly. "I don't understand a lot of things about this elemental stuff, but I'm smart, I can get it." I don't know why I was pleading with them; I guess I didn't really want to be left out._

_"Are you sure?" Tapeworm didn't look skeptical, he just seemed genuinely concerned. "We don't want you to get hurt of anything." Max muttered something under her breath and Tapeworm elbowed her in the side, sharply._

_"Guys, you can trust, Bailey." Cody replied firmly. "I do."_

_"That doesn't mean that Riley, Rhuben, or Crystal will." Max pointed out as she raised an eyebrows._

_"Well, there's not here right now." Cody replied sharply._

"She knows that we're elementals obviously," Cody spoke up, quickly coming to my defense. "And she was the one that came up with the plan that helped us capture Koto."

"So?" Riley replied.

"So, you can trust her."

"I don't."

"Then trust me," Cody insisted. "I know that she can help us." He shrugged. "If I'm wrong…well, I don't want to be wrong and I'm usually not." Riley glared at him and he flinched a little.

The rest of us had fallen silent as we watched the exchange. I flushed a little, knowing that the whole argument was about me. Maybe I shouldn't have wanted to know what they were doing so badly. But then again…that voice…it told me that I was supposed to be there, so I guess I was supposed to be there to help them, even if Riley didn't want me there.

"Trust me," I spoke up and Riley turned her harsh look towards me, I couldn't help but flinch as well. "I won't do anything that will cause your secret to get out. I'll help you guys in the best way that I can. I promise."

"You better" was all that Rhuben said in reply.

* * *

For the next two weeks, Riley stayed in the cabin and Koto stayed with the rest of us. Things went perfectly fine, and we all started to relax a little. There were no attack, school went by perfectly fine, and we turned in our science projects. Zack and Cody did theirs on the _idea_ that there could possibly be elementals (they had used that as a project so they could cover up what they were doing before I found out) and Miss. Tutweiller gave them a B, saying that although it was a good theory, most of the stuff that elementals could do was definitely impossible. Ha, shows how much she knows.

Marcus, London, and Woody have been getting kind of suspicious as to why we were always being secretive and I wish I could tell them. Well, I knew I couldn't tell London because she would either blab the secret without knowing it, or just completely forget. I couldn't risk it so I didn't tell her. Woody usually got distracted by food to even care much after a few minutes, and Marcus would get distracted by girls. I felt so bad for lying to them, but I didn't really have a choice.

As the two weeks went by, Koto continued to return to his normal self, he would become extremely independent and rude, it didn't bother anyone else, but it sort of annoyed me, as I was a person that tired to get everyone to like me.

Not that it mattered really, I was busy myself, researching everything that I could about what the cause of the voice in my head could be. Every time I would go to sleep, or if I would zone out, I would have that vision of Zack and Cody and the boat being torn to shreds. I don't know why it was happening and I don't know why it was happening to me. I didn't tell anyone either, I didn't want them to worry about me and I wanted to figure it out myself. Just so I could prove to Riley and Rhuben that they could trust me and that I could help them more than the thought I could.

It wasn't until we had docked in the UK was when it happened.

…

..

.

"Does anyone besides me think that the food here really sucks?" Patrick questioned as she flipped soggy piece of French fry back into his basket of food. "I mean, they douse it with vinegar and stuff all the time, it's really disgusting."

Patrick, Noah, Crystal, Rhuben, Koto, and I were taking a break from walking around the city of London so we stopped to get something to eat. The others were walking around the other side of the city. We knew that if we were all together, then there would be a better chance of being attacked.

"You actually stopped and tasted it?" Crystal asked, giving him a teasing smile. "It seems to me that you would rather inhale the food than actually eat it." Patrick smiled back at her and she laughed a little. "But I have to agree with you, all they ever serve here is fish."

"Aww, the kitty doesn't like fish?" Koto leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head. "Poor you." Crystal ignored him. "So how much longer are you going to keep me around? You don't need me."

"We don't need _you_, but we do need to keep you around," I replied, poking around at the food on my plate. "You never know when we're going to need you for something."

"Right, just like everyone else here needs _you_." Koto snorted. "You probably couldn't fight your way out of a wet paper bag."

"Koto, can it." Rhuben replied, giving him a look. Koto looked back at her and she raised an eyebrow and he fell silent.

"So, can I ask you something?" I spoke up after a second of silence. "Why is it that even though you've been attacking each other for years and years, you actually listen to them when they tell you to stop doing something or other? Or you don't get impatient with them?" I asked, mostly speaking to Koto.

"It's none of your business," Rhuben replied coldly. "I know that you know some of the things that we went through while we were in WingzCorp, but you don't understand everything. You only came into this on accident."

"Rhu," Noah spoke gently. "Don't be rude, she's only asking a question."

"Yeah, something that doesn't concern her." Rhuben replied.

"It does concern me," I blurted out quickly. "I know it does. Lately, I've been having these…dreams, premonitions, I don't know. That something really, really, bad is going to happen." I shook my head. "From what I've seen, the ship gets really torn apart, a lot of innocent people are killed, and there's a voice."

"A voice?" Patrick repeated and made a grunting sound when Noah hit him on the back of the head. "Sorry."

"Yeah, a voice," I nodded. "I don't know if it's a guys or a girl's voice, but what I can tell you is that it sounds like it knows what it's talking about. The person keeps telling me that I'm meant to be helping you guys that I'm supposed to be put into this, that I'm supposed to help you guys."

"Wait a minute," Crystal spoke up suddenly. "Maybe, she's telling the truth." She thought for a second. "Maybe she's like Aaron."

"You mean that little blind kid that's always hanging around you guys?" Koto spoke up again. Crystal ignored him.

"We all know that he's not an elemental, but he _does_ have some sort of power," Noah agreed with a nod. "Maybe the voice is telling Bailey that she had the same power."

"But we don't even really know that Aaron's power is." Patrick reminded him.

"All the more reason that we have to find him to help figure this out." Noah continued.

"Whatever," Koto took out a cigarette and lit it up, blowing smoke rings into the air. "You guys are always talking, never doing. That's what makes us so different," he tilted his head down again, looking serious, his green eyes flashing. "If you would actually believe me, you would know that what WingzCorp has been doing this whole time as been trying to help you."

"Explain" Rhuben commanded.

"I can't disclose all the details-"

"When can you?" Crystal interrupted.

"But like I was saying before, we know that Halo Syndicate is up to something, we don't know exactly, but there's a way that they're going to destroy everybody in the world. Humans and Elementals alike, only they will be the ones that survive and they're going to start their own 'elemental race' when they're done. What we know is that in a year and a half this is going to happen."

"You mean in 2012?" I asked, wrinkling my nose.

"That's the idea, they-"

Koto let out a guttural scream as a green ball of energy flew over head and hit him in the chest, sending him off of his feet and across the patio of the restaurant that we were sitting in. Everybody that was around started to scream and run away as more balls of energy flew over head, obviously aiming towards us.

"Get her out of here!" Rhuben commanded as she held out her hands and a large black ball of energy appeared and she threw it forward, towards a green ball of energy.

The two collided in mid air and there was an explosion that knocked me off my feet and back onto the ground. I let out a cry of pain as my head connected with the cement in a sharp thwack. People who were still running by, screaming, started to run over me, with no worry if I was ok or not. I shielded my face and my chest the best I could and waited until they were all gone until I sat up and looked around again. Another ball of energy flew overhead, and I jumped out of the way, just in time or it would have definitely hit me. I sat up, brushing off my arms and legs.

Koto was already back on his feet, teeth bared and growling loudly. I winced in pain; my whole body was aching, as I got back to my feet. Noah moved towards me, to get me out of there but I shook my head. I couldn't explain to him that I had to stay, but I didn't have to. Noah just looked at me and nodded before hurrying back over to his brother and sister. As I got to my feet, Patrick, Noah, Crystal, and Rhuben moved to stand beside him, looking around to see where the attacks were coming from.

All of a sudden I felt arms around my waist and I let out a scream as I was lifted up into the air. Koto whirled around and immediately turned into a wolf, jumped on top of a table, onto the roof of the restaurant and leapt into the air, snarling as he latched onto the foot of the person that had grabbed onto me. I thrashed around, trying to get away, as Koto continued to hold on. I tilted my head back and immediately recognized the face of the guy that had attack the ship a couple of days ago. He smirked back down at me, his gray eyes flashing. Then he looked down at Koto with contempt.

"Get off me you mangy mutt!" he cried and kicked Koto in the head.

Koto let out a whining sound and fell back to the ground as the man halted in the air, hovering lightly. I gasped as I stared back down at the ground, if he dropped me now, I definitely would be killed.

"Let go of Bailey!" Patrick cried as he and Noah flew up and hovered next to the guy, their wings flapping gently.

I gasped. '_What animals are they? Those wings don't look like bird wings, not like Zack and Cody's. I've never seen them like that before_.'

"There's not use in trying to fight me," the man stated calmly. "You're just going to lose."

"Oh yeah?" Patrick brought his hands together and they glowed yellow and crackled with electricity. He then raised them over his head and thunderclouds started to form together. Lightning crackled and thunder rumbled from above him. "THUNDER CRASH!" He shouted as he moved his hands back down.

A large bolt of lightning shot out of the sky towards the man and me and I closed my eyes, turning my head away, waiting to get hit, but was surprised when nothing happened. I looked up just in time to see the lightning bolt stop a few inches short of the man and shot away from him, hitting a tree below, causing it to burst into flames. Noah gaped at him, eyes wide. He brought his watch to his mouth.

"Guys, we're going to need a little help here." He stated.

_"Where are you?" Riley's worried voice replied almost immediately._

"Trust me, you'll find us." Noah replied.

Rhuben and Crystal suddenly appeared in the air on the backs of Driver, the large white tiger, and a large black and silver lion. "What do you want?" Rhuben demanded, tightening her grip on her guardian. "Who are you?"

"Careful my mistress," Her guardian replied smoothly. "This guy, I can feel it, he's much stronger than anyone that we have ever faced before."

"Since you asked so nicely," the guy replied. "My name is Zhane," he smiled a little. "I'm part of Halo Syndicate and I'm trying to get you guys to stop trying to stop us." His smile grew wider. "No one can stop us, not even Core, the guy that used to run WingzCorp." He nodded at all of us. "Yes, we used to work with WingzCorp, but as the years went by, we realized that we were much stronger than them and we broke apart. We want to rule the world and we know that we'll be able to do so." He nodded towards the ground, where Koto, still in his wolf form, was walking in a large circle under us. "You should have listened to them; WingzCorp is really trying to help you."

"Why are you telling us this?" Noah demanded.

"Because I'm going to kill you," Zhane replied. "Right here and right now." He tightened his grip on me. "Starting with this girl, she's not an elemental, but she has some sort of power and she's a nuisance. The best place to start is with her."

I let out a grunt as he tightened his grip, effectively cutting off air flow to my stomach. All of a sudden I felt shot of electricity shoot down my spine and I screamed in pain. It was agonizing; I couldn't believe that the others were able to deal with this day in and day out. It hurt so bad that tears started to stream down my cheeks and I screamed even louder.

"Quick, attack him!" Crystal cried.

"No, you might hit Bailey." Patrick shouted back, his eyes wide.

"But we have to do something." Noah replied.

All of a sudden, I felt peaceful and everything around me turned white. "_Bailey Pickett, don't be afraid." _It was the voice. "_You're tapping into the power that you have been holding for a long time. Use it wisely; use it to save yourself and your friends. I know that you're going to do a good job with it._"

I opened my eyes and all of a sudden knew what to do. I focused all of the energy that I had in my body and released it. Zhane screamed in pain and let me go, but I didn't fall, I was hovering in the air. I turned around and watched as Zhane continued to scream in pain, his body steaming as sores appeared on his arms and legs.

"Quick, do it now!" Dricer commanded.

"CRYSTAL SMASH!" A large block of ice formed in between Crystal's hands and she threw it forward.

"Darkness Atom Bomb!" A large ball of darkness energy formed around Rhuben and her guardian and she shot it forwards as well.

"LIGHTNING STORM!" Patrick and Noah called in unison. A large gust of wind picked up and a ball of air moved in between Noah's hands, little bursts of energy inside. He threw it into the air and Patrick created another bolt of lightning and crashed it into the orb of air, causing a large orb of energy and he sent it towards Zhane as well.

Zhane held out his hands and the attacks hit a force field that he put up, but he couldn't hold it for long and he was hit by all three attacks. He screamed again and used what was left of his energy to glare at us and to disappear in a flash of green light.

Slowly, I lowered myself back to the ground as well as the others. Koto turned back to a human and stood to the side, looking apathetic.

As soon as my feet touched the ground I felt all of my energy fade away and I crumpled to the ground on my hands and knees, breathing heavily.

"How'd I do that?" I whispered eyes wide in shock…

* * *

**A/N: I had a good idea so fast that I decided to update this again for you guys. I really hope that you liked it. There are now a few more questions that arise and some questions have already been answered as well as some more things about WingzCorp and Halo Syndicate being explained. I'll update again soon.**

**-Riley**


	19. That made me excited and scared

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

* * *

When we got back to the boat, I was immediately bombarded with questions by Zack, Cody, and Sydney. I could tell from the looks on their faces that they were surprised that I was able to actually emit some sort of energy as well as having a power in the first place. After all of the questions and after being checked by Max, they concluded that I wasn't an elemental, but there was still something special about me that they hadn't uncovered yet. Sydney then did a series of tests on me and he came to the same conclusion. That made me excited and scared at the same time.

What if I was going to be directly attack from now on?

Would my powers grow or was it only a one time deal sort of thing?

_All of a sudden, I felt peaceful and everything around me turned white. "Bailey Pickett, don't be afraid." It was the voice. "You're tapping into the power that you have been holding for a long time. Use it wisely; use it to save yourself and your friends. I know that you're going to do a good job with it."_

_I opened my eyes and all of a sudden knew what to do. I focused all of the energy that I had in my body and released it. Zhane screamed in pain and let me go, but I didn't fall, I was hovering in the air. I turned around and watched as Zhane continued to scream in pain, his body steaming as sores appeared on his arms and legs._

_"Quick, do it now!" Dricer commanded._

_"CRYSTAL SMASH!" A large block of ice formed in between Crystal's hands and she threw it forward._

_"Darkness Atom Bomb!" A large ball of darkness energy formed around Rhuben and her guardian and she shot it forwards as well._

_"LIGHTNING STORM!" Patrick and Noah called in unison. A large gust of wind picked up and a ball of air moved in between Noah's hands, little bursts of energy inside. He threw it into the air and Patrick created another bolt of lightning and crashed it into the orb of air, causing a large orb of energy and he sent it towards Zhane as well._

_Zhane held out his hands and the attacks hit a force field that he put up, but he couldn't hold it for long and he was hit by all three attacks. He screamed again and used what was left of his energy to glare at us and to disappear in a flash of green light._

_Slowly, I lowered myself back to the ground as well as the others. Koto turned back to a human and stood to the side, looking apathetic._

_As soon as my feet touched the ground I felt all of my energy fade away and I crumpled to the ground on my hands and knees, breathing heavily._

_"How'd I do that?" I whispered eyes wide in shock_

Why was it that then was the only time that I was able to use whatever powers I had? Was it because it was the only time that I was scared? No one knew how to answer the questions and I didn't think that they would be able to anyway. Sure they knew a lot about elements and elementals, but they didn't know everything. Some things were still new to them and I couldn't expect them to be able to answer it. That night when I had gone to sleep, I continued to dream about the encounter.

I could feel it happening over and over again. I could feel my body being shocked so hard that I could feel myself jerking around in my bed, but I wasn't waking up. And then over and over I felt peaceful and would shoot out the source of energy that I had stored inside me. I could hear Zhane's scream of pain and then once again saw the sores that appeared on his skin.

It kept me up all night long.

The next day was a normal day, we were in class (minus the Jacksons as they were being homeschooled) and Marcus and Woody were a little bit more suspicious than before, but never really asked where we kept disappearing to. Now I knew how Zack and Cody felt. How they had to continue to try and keep secrets from us. It was hard. London, well, she was too air-headed to notice it anyway, so I'm sure it was easy to keep things from her. But it was still hard.

When school was over, I went off to do my homework as Cody and Zack went to go to work and everyone else went off to do whatever they needed. We had agreed that Koto didn't really need to be watched anymore, as he definitely wasn't a threat to anyone. At least not as big of a threat as Halo Syndicate. So he would just walk around the boat in his wolf form (which was usually mistaken for a dog) looking like he wanted to jump off the boat and dog paddle all the way to land.

We were acting normal.

But my life was now anything _but_ normal.

"Bailey," Tapeworm walked over to me, looking serious about something. He pulled out a chair at the table I was sitting at and flopped down, cutting to the chase. "Listen, I have to tell you something." He cleared his throat. "You need to hurry up and pack your stuff," he continued as I felt a wave of confusion wash over me. "We're getting away from all of this. We're going back to the US."

"We're leaving the boat?" I gasped, my mouth dropping open. "Like, we're getting _off _the SS Tipton?"

Tapeworm nodded as he looked around to make sure that no one was listening to our conversation. "We all agree, it's not a good idea to stay here anymore, we've already been attacked on the boat and what's to say that that's going to stop them from attack the boat again." He sighed heavily. "Plus, we don't want to get anyone in any more danger than we have to, and we know that Halo Syndicate, or whoever it is that's chasing us will find us either way."

"Wait," I held up a hand to stop him. "You all agree…" Tapeworm suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Why wasn't my opinion asked?"

"Well," Tapeworm blushed a little. "Riley and Rhuben were the ones that brought it up and-"

"And they clearly don't trust me or like me so they didn't ask for what I thought at all." I replied with a nod. Tapeworm looked apologetic.

"Don't' take it so personally," he stated with a small smile. "You should have seen how long it took for them to trust Zack, Cody, Max, and me. Just give them time, they mean well." He licked his lips. "Then again, they haven't had the best life, so they are quick to distance themselves."

"I get what you mean," I stated, shaking my head slowly. "I guess I better start getting my stuff then." I turned and started to walk away. _'Leave the Tipton_?' I thought to myself, in shock. '_The SS Tipton has been my home for years, how can I leave it?_'

"Bailey," Tapeworm called and got my attention again. I turned around to face him. "You only have enough time to pack a backpack of stuff; we need to get out of here as soon as possible."

"Alright," I nodded and then thought of something. "Where are we going?"

"That's the weird part," Tapeworm replied as he placed his hands on his hips, his eyes filling with worry. "We're going to WingzCorp."

* * *

**A/N: Sorry this is a shorter chapter guys, I just wanted to show more of Bailey's thoughts as well as bringing WingzCorp into play. Next chapter will be longer to make up for it. I'm glad that you guys liked the last chapter so much. Thanks to **


	20. Ambush! Run!

CHAPTER NINETEEN

**A/N: This chapter is in 3****rd**** person, but it will still get into Bailey's thoughts. **

**

* * *

**"So what do you think of the idea of going back to WingzCorp?" Dricer questioned as he padded around in a circle before sitting down on his haunches.

He looked over at DeathLiger and DalFang, who were sitting on opposite sides of the circle that the guardians were creating. They were all in their small forms and were sitting at the back of the boat, under an occupied table, for the shade and to make sure no one was watching them. DalFang looked at him and then looked away, but DeathLiger spoke up.

"What can I say?" DeathLiger shrugged. "What Mistress thinks is a good idea; I have to trust her that it is a good idea."

"What about you?" Canis asked as she looked over at DalFang, resulting in all eyes turning on him. "You haven't said anything in a while." She pointed out.

"I guess it's just that he doesn't want to have to think of the things that they had to go through while they were there." ThunderTatsu spoke up, looking around the boat and watching as some people walked by. He moved a little closer to his brother, SilverTatsu, looking weary.

"You can't blame them," SpiritSaru spoke up as well. "I don't think any of them, especially Koto, wants to go back there?"

"What makes you think that Koto wouldn't want to go back?" Blazen snorted, his sharp eyes turning towards the monkey. "I mean, he was the one that has caused all of our Masters and Mistresses pain and suffering these past few years."

"Yeah, but you're not thinking about it rationally," Phantom replied, speaking to the whole group. "Koto and the others…from what I have learned from DeathLiger and DalFang, they have been worked to the bone for most of their lives and they were taken away from their families. We don't know if most of them even _wanted_ to be in WingzCorp." If it was possible for eagles to shrug, Phantom did just that. "We don't know how they feel about it at all. So it _is _plausible that they could hate it there."

"Then why spend so much time there?" Ursa replied. "Core is gone; they could easily go somewhere else." He thought for a second.

"Not unless their families have given up on them." Dricer replied reasonably. "You _did _just say that they were taken from their families."

"What I don't get-"

"Which should be a lot of things," Phantom interrupted and laughed. Blazen shot him a dirty look and continued on with his statement.

"What I don't get is how was it that the two of you were captured in the first place?" Blazen replied as he titled his head to the side. "I mean, ThunderTatsu, SilverTatsu, and SpiritSaru were able to get to Patrick, Noah, and Sydney perfectly fine."

"I don't think they want to talk about it," Dricer spoke up as he quickly looked over at the two of them.

"Subject change!" ThunderTatsu called loudly, much like Patrick would. SilverTatsu and Ursa shushed him, looking around to make sure that no one had heard his outburst. "Sorry," he whispered and lowered his voice. "What's the deal with Halo Syndicate, why is it that they're only attacking _now_?"

"Who knows?" Canis replied, rolling onto her back and rocking back and forth, scratching her back on the deck. "All of the people we faced have never send a greeting card before, so why now?"

"Touché."

"Halo Syndicate," Blazen sighed and ruffled out his feathers, shifting his weight on his talons. "I don't know why, but I have a feeling that they're going to be the toughest people we and the others are ever going to face."

"Blazen!" They could hear Zack's voice call.

"Phantom!" Cody's voice. "Guys, come on, we're ready to go!"

The guardians all moved out from under the table and over to their Masters and Mistresses, immediately glowing and turning back to their large forms. Zack smiled as he ran his fingers over Blazen's feathers.

"Alright, so this is what we're going to do," he stated as he turned to face everyone. "Koto is going to direct us where we need to go," he explained the plan loud enough for them to hear, but not loud enough so that it would gather anyone's attention. "No one is scheduled to be back here for a while-"

"How'd you manage to swing that?" Patrick asked brushing his hair out of his face as the salty air blew towards him.

"Let's just say that I left a collection of some of my clothes around here." Zack replied with a smirk as he rocked back and forth on his heels, his friends making faces of disgust. Zack was never one to bathe a lot, or to even clean his clothes, so he knew the smell that they were giving off was going to keep anyone from walking on them anytime soon. "Anyway, the rest of us are going to be flying behind whomever is taking Koto over, completely spaced out, that way if we ever get attacked, we won't all be caught in the blast." He raised a hand to his chin. "Now, we have to figure out who is taking Max, Tapeworm, Koto, and Bailey."

"Max can ride with me," Patrick offered, smiling warmly.

"Not trying to take my girlfriend are you?" Tapeworm smirked back over at him and slapped him on the back. Tapeworm had changed a lot over the years that had passed, he had kept his same bushy hair, but he had also changed a lot, he was still very smart, and used a lot of technical jargon every now and then, but he also realized that being smart wasn't everything. (Although he still claimed he was going to be the next Bill Gates.)

"I wouldn't even dream of it," Patrick replied with a laugh as he patted his friend on the arm. And that was just Patrick, he could be insulted, he could even be teased cruelly, and if he didn't decide that it was worth it to beat up the other person, he just smiled, laughed, and made a big joke out of everything.

"Ok, now that we've solved that problem, we also have to figure out who is going to take Bailey and Koto over," Cody continued. "Because whoever takes them is pretty much going to be the targets if anyone tries to ambush us."

"Do you really think that that could happen?" Bailey questioned quietly. She had been silent the whole time and now she spoke up. '_Everything is happening so fast_' she thought to herself, looking around the boat in distress. '_This is the last time that I'm going to see the boat, that I'm going to see Kirby, Mrs. Moseby, Miss Tutweiller, Woody, Marcus, or London and I'm not going to get a chance to say goodbye to them._'

"Knowing these guys and how they already attacked you and everybody in the vicinity of that restaurant, as well as them attacking us on the boat," Noah spoke up, running his fingers through his hair. "Then it wouldn't surprise me. These guys really are more powerful than we've ever faced."

"Crys," Rhuben turned to her cousin suddenly, looking like she had just thought of something important. "Your dad and our dad used to…" she trailed off as she looked over at the others before lowering her voice a little. She cleared her throat. "Work together," she raised her voice again. "Do you think he knows anything about Halo Syndicate?"

Crystal looked like she hadn't thought of that herself. She quickly pulled her backpack off of her back and pulled out a laptop that looked similar to Sydney's but was bigger and from a quick glance over from Sydney, Cody, Noah, and Tapeworm, they knew that it would be able to hold a lot more information, and that it wasn't a ordinary laptop that every teenager would have.

"If it's not on here, then we would have to go ask my dad directly," she replied and then turned to everyone else. "Long story short, this is basically a laptop that holds every single thing that my dad knows about elements and elementals. Anything he knows it would be in here."

"So does it have anything about Halo Syndicate in it?" Riley demanded, getting impatient.

"We can worry about it later, right now; we have to get out of here." Koto interrupted, just as impatient. "You guys talk way too much for your own good, you know that?" He sighed and cracked his knuckles as he looked around. "Not that there's that many great people to choose from, but if I had to I'd-"

All of a sudden the sound of the horn on the sky deck sounded and Koto let out a yelp and jumped onto Zack's back, holding on tightly as the others stared at him.

'_Well, he definitely has wolf…well, dog, tendencies there_' Bailey smiled a little as she watched him. '_Getting scared of the smallest thing. I'm sure that he's not going to be able to live that one down._' She crossed her arms over her chest and grinned. "A little scared, there Koto?" she teased sweetly as the horn died down.

Koto immediately slid off of Zack's back and moved over to Bailey, grabbing her by the front of the shirt and baring his teeth at her. His long nails ripped holes through her shirt and Bailey gasped sharply as she looked up into his narrowed green eyes. "Don't think just because you're a girl that I won't hit you."

"Koto," Cody started, sounding annoyed himself. "Let-"Cody watched in surprise as Riley reached over and shoved a fist underneath Koto's right arm pit. He let out a curse and his arms dropped to his sides as if he was heavily sedated.

"Just to make sure that you don't go and attack anyone else," Riley grabbed him by the back of his jacket. "You're going to go with me and DalFang."

"Over my dead body." Zack shot back.

"Glad to know that you'd commit suicide for me, but I'm not worth it," Riley replied easily and then motioned over to Cody. "Besides, you wouldn't want to do to that to Cody. And it makes plenty of sense. If Koto and I, or whomever he goes with, is a target, then it leaves you and Cody a chance to go ahead and attack them with as much force as possible."

"She has a point," Sydney spoke up. "It would be better if we left you two the ones that had to attack someone if we do get ambushed or whatever," he looked over at Bailey. "Which would also mean that it's a good idea for me to take Bailey on my staff, that way I can create a barrier in case anyone gets too close to her."

Zack and Cody stayed silent for a few moments, weighing the pros and cons of the whole situation. They knew that Riley and Sydney were both right, but for their own selfish reasons, they didn't want to admit it. Ultimately, they were going to agree to it, they knew that they had to, but there was still something about this whole thing, about having to go to WingzCorp for help seemed really strange. Why would going to the place that had been hunting you down for years be a good idea and how could it help you? They had a better chance of surviving the way they had been for the past six years.

So why change it now?

But if Sydney thought that it was a good idea, and if he actually trusted what WingzCorp was saying, then they were going to trust him, no matter how wrong they thought the idea was.

"We need to get going," Blazen moved closer to Zack's side and held his wings out as he bent down so Zack had enough room to climb on. "I can hear that Moseby guy going on a rampage already and we should get out of here before he catches us." He shook his head. "And I don't think that trying to explain _everything_ to him is a good idea."

"Good point," SpiritSaru agreed. He disappeared in a flash of blue light and Sydney held out his hand. "Unfading Promise!" he called and his staff appeared in his hand and he quickly climbed on. "C'mon, Bailey." Bailey hesitated before climbing onto the staff after him. He pushed off the ground with his feet and easily hovered a few hundred feet up into the air.

The others quickly got onto their guardians and moved up into the air with him.

"WingzCorp, here we come." Crystal sighed as they all flew off into the air, leaving the SS Tipton behind them. "Although we don't know if it's a good idea. We're going to get some answers.

Zack sighed heavily as he looked behind him, watching as the SS Tipton got smaller and smaller. He knew that he was going to miss it, he was going to miss working at the Easy Squeezee, he was going to miss messing with Miss. Tutweiller, hanging out and making music with Marcus, tricking London into giving him money, getting into trouble with Woody, and he was even going to miss having Mr. Moseby around yelling at him. He knew that when he had awakened as an elemental that he was going to have to leave everything that he knew and loved eventually, but he thought that the Tipton Hotel was going to be the only time that it would happen.

Now it was happening again and Zack wasn't sure whether or not it was worth it.

* * *

Bailey frowned as the wind blew her hair out of her face. The ocean water underneath her was blinding as it had been for a while. She didn't know where they were going, she wasn't sure if anyone but the Jacksons or Koto knew where they were going, but they had been flying for hours and she knew that they had covered a lot of ground. They had flown over a lot of bodies of water, and they had also flown over lots of land masses and she couldn't even tell where they were, but she was glad that she was able o see more of the world than she would have ever had if she stayed on the SS Tipton.

'_But at what price am I doing this_?' Bailey thought to herself as she looked around at her friends as they flew on. They were all talking to each other, trying to keep silence from settling in. They all knew what they were putting at stake.

Their lives.

'_I'm giving up everything that I ever knew to try and help people that I don't really know._' Bailey thought to herself. '_And I'm probably never going to see my family ever again. But if what they're saying is true, that we're going to somehow save the world from all of this…I don't know, it just seems really…_' Bailey sighed again. '_I don't see how I'm going to help them with this. So far all I've done is have a disembodied voice talk to me and __somehow__ attack someone with powers that I can't seem to duplicate._'

_Don't worry Bailey; you're more important than you think._

Bailey smirked to herself. '_Thanks voice_'.

Over on the other side of the group Zack was getting a little restless and Blazen could tell and was getting restless himself. He just wanted to be able to get to WingzCorp and finally get some answers that they had deserved the whole time they had been chased and attacked over the years. He looked over at Koto, who was sitting on DalFang's back, his arms loosely around Riley's waist, looking annoyed himself (probably wanting to get back on the ground) and felt a instantaneous spike of jealously.

'_I don't even know why I care so much_' Zack thought to himself as he shook his head. '_I mean, every time we seem to get close she keeps disappearing on me and then when she finally comes back she acts like nothing has happened between us and then reverts back to her old mysterious self that insults me and every chance she gets._'

"Yeah, but you don't know what she's been through while she's been away," Blazen pointed out, easily knowing what Zack was thinking. "Something may have happened that she doesn't want to talk about, don't rush her." He chuckled when Zack snorted, rolling his eyes. "All I can say is just keep trying and she'll turn around."

"How do you know that?" Zack asked irritably. "You're a guardian, not really human, you know."

"Yeah, but back home guardians acted the same way that you humans do," Blazen replied, sounding more mature than he usually did. "We worked, we fell in love, we can have kids of our own, the only difference is that we come from a different world and that we certain ceremonies to get our element and our spirit animal."

"Wow," Zack was actually shocked. He never realized how little he knew about his guardian, all he knew was that Blazen was his best friend and that he would do anything that he could for him. "I guess you're right. I admit there's a lot that we don't know about you guys but you protect us without question."

"There are things that I don't get about you either," Blazen replied. "What's the purpose of a dish washer; can't you just lick everything clean? And what's the point of plates? Why don't you guys just eat with your hands?"

For the first time in a long time, Zack tilted his head back and laughed hard.

Hours passed by and finally Rhuben, who was in the lead, gave the order for everyone to land on the ground, inside of a dense forest. As soon as they got off their guardians' backs, they disappeared in a flash of bright light, for a much needed rest.

"Ok," Rhuben moved her backpack up her back and rubbed her shoulders. "From here, Koto is going to lead the way to WingzCorp."

"Are you sure it's here?" Crystal asked, turning a critical eye over to Koto who was walking around a bush, sniffing it loudly. "What are you doing?" she demanded when she noticed what he was doing.

Koto looked up at her and smirked. "A guy's gotta pee after having been riding in the air for a long time." He turned around and unzipped his pants as everyone else turned away from him, their faces holding different expressions of disgust.

"Like I was asking, are you sure it's here?" Crystal asked, holding a hand by the side of her face, just in case she turned back too soon.

"I think I know the smell of my own brother," Koto replied as he finished relieving himself, zipped up, and turned back around to face everyone. "But WingzCorp moves a lot, this was the last place that I know that it was and I doubt that they would have the need to move it again."

"What do you mean it moves a lot?" Bailey repeated.

"Simple battle strategy," Cody interrupted, thinking out loud. "They move around so no one can find them that easily."

"And WingzCorp had recruited the Jacksons when they were in Australia, so that means that it moves all over the world," Tapeworm added, immediately catching on. "But how can it move so much when there's only a certain building that they-"

"The same building is used the whole time because the building is what is being moved, not the people." Patrick interrupted. "Instead of having to take the time to fly around the place, and to move everything where police or anyone else can find it, Core had invented this…_thing_ that created a barrier around the building, accused it to become invisible whenever anyone needed it, and it was able to make the building and everything inside, move at will." He shrugged when everyone turned to look at him. "I stole the blueprints for it once and Sydney explained what it was."

"Ok, let's go find it before we get-"Max was interrupted by Riley's grunt of pain as she was hit with an orb of green energy and was blasted into a tree. She slid to the ground as the tree she crashed into immediately splintered against the force of the attack and the speed that Riley had hit it. "Riley!" she gasped.

"Ri-Ri!" Sydney wailed, hurrying over to his oldest sister.

"It's an ambush!" Koto cried quickly and immediately stared to move away from the area. "Run!"

Zack and Cody quickly looked at each other and raised their right arms, which held their element watches, into the air. It started to glow in their respective colors, red and blue. They moved their hands from above their heads to our in front of them, looking serious as they concentrated.

"Blaze of the Heart!" Zack called.

"Water of the Soul!" Cody called.

In front of Cody was a staff that held a jewel with his element symbol in it, he smirked as he grabbed onto it, immediately feeling the power that moved into his body. In front of Zack was a large sword, a jewel with his element symbol was encrusted on the hilt of the blade. He grabbed onto it and turned around, swinging the sword in the direction that the blast of energy had come from.

"Blaze Blade Arc!" he called and a rush of flames and energy went crashing through the trees. It imploded a few yards away and he wasn't sure if it hit anybody, but he wasn't going to wait around to find out. "Quick, get Bailey out of here!"

"I'm on it!" Sydney abandoned his sister, who was now back on her feet, and he, Patrick, and Noah hurried over to Bailey, who was looking around in fear and confusion as green energy blasts continued to rain around them, causing the ground and trees to explode, sending dust and clumps of dirt flying.

Another blast of energy came flying from the trees and headed towards Bailey. Patrick, Noah, and Sydney quickly gathered around her and closed their eyes, concentrating on their power.

"_Luminescence!_" They called, opening their eyes again. Thunder, wind and spiritual powers formed a big sphere of light, surrounded by ferocious winds, which shot white thunders at all directions. Sydney called out his staff again.

"Spirit Shield!" A large shield appeared around him, Bailey, and his brothers. "C'mon we have to get her to WingzCorp!" Patrick and Noah quickly grabbed onto Bailey's hands and as dragon wings slid out of their shoulder blades they took off into the air, the shield still around them and Sydney quickly followed after them.

Zack, Cody, Max, and Tapeworm ducked out of the way as Riley, Crystal, and Rhuben quickly scaled the trees surrounding them to try and figure out who was attacking them. Koto jumped into the air and turned into a wolf before running off through the bushes.

"There are like," Rhuben quickly counted. "Five of them and they're surrounding us, we have to either fight or get out of here as soon as we ca-" Now it was her turn to grunt in pain as she was hit in the stomach by a blast of energy and she went falling out of the tree. DeathLiger appeared at her side and he caught her before she hit the ground.

"Are you ok?" Crystal called down to her. Rhuben waved a hand as she slid off of DeathLiger's back and he disappeared in a flash of purple light. She held up her hands and a large black orb of energy appeared in front of her like a shield and a blast of energy collided against it, immediately imploding. But the strength of it still forced her back. Crystal breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that her cousin was ok.

Sure they all argued from time to time but it was the time for them to put their petty jealousy and their old family rivalry to rest, there were more important things in the world than their fighting. Riley and Crystal turned and dove back to the ground as other blasts of energy headed towards them.

"Earth Shaking!" Tapeworm glowed a light green as he moved his arms back, as if pushed over by a large hand, the trees and bushes around them were leveled and they were able to see five people in the distance.

One of them they could see was Zhane, but the other four were young boys, about Sydney's age. Once they knew they were spotted they started shooting out blasts of energy in rapid succession, barely leaving anyone time to dodge them. Zack and Cody used their sword and staff to cut through the blasts of energy as Riley, Rhuben, Crystal, Max, and Tapeworm opted to use their own powers to send them back towards the ones that were shooting it at them. Either way, they were fighting a losing battle and before anyone knew it they were all back to back in a circle, shifting their eyes back and forth to watch them as they came closer.

"What are we going to do?" Tapeworm asked, watching as they all continued to get closer.

"What do you think we should do?" Max snapped back. "We get out of here and go back, Koto was the first one to disappear when this started and we all know why. He knew that this was going to happen, he delivered us here on purpose so we would get attacked and he ran as soon as possible."

"Max is right." Zack agreed. "He left us here to dry and now we only have one choice."

"No, he didn't!" Crystal snapped back. "He couldn't have known that these guys were going to be here!"

"How do you know for sure?" Cody asked, not sure where her reasoning came from. "He's not here now, Max is right, he set us up."

"We won't know that until we have proof," Rhuben agreed with her cousin. "And we're _not _going back to the SS Tipton, or to the Tipton Hotel, or to our homes, it would just cause them to chase us there and endanger everyone else. What we're going to do is stay here and fight them so we can get some answers."

"And if we die?" Max snapped back.

"That's a chance I'm willing to take," Rhuben continued and smirked. "I mean, since we've faced death so much lately. She grabbed onto Riley's and Crystal's wrists as her blue eyes started to turn purple. "Max, Tapeworm, grab onto me. Zack and Cody, attack them with as much force when I say."

"But-"

"Just do it!" Riley snapped.

"Alright." Zack sighed in reply, tightening his grip on his sword. "I just hope you know what you're doing." But he didn't need to say that, he knew that he would follow whatever Riley said even if it was the dumbest idea in the world.

"Hold on" Rhuben instructed as the Zhane and the four other girls got as close as they wanted. They grinned evil and held their hands out, large orbs of green energy growing around their hands as they concentrated on the energy. They knew it was going to be the death blow and they wanted to make it worth it.

"Hurry!" Max cried, seeing what they were doing.

Rhuben glowed a bright purple that faded into black and they suddenly slipped into darkness. As they were maneuvered through it, they were all pressed on all sides by pressure. Max and Tapeworm had never felt that immense pain before and could feel the despair and depression that came along with the element of darkness as well as having darkness in side you. They finally knew what it felt to have to worry about it constantly and sympathized with the Jacksons.

When the pressure eased, they were a few yards away from Zack and Cody and watched as Zhane and the others unleashed their attack.

"Cody, if we don't get out of this, I love you bro." Zack stated, sweating slipping down his cheek as he watched the blast of energy get closer.

"I love you too," Cody replied with a half smile. "But trust me; we're not going to die, not yet." Cody had definitely grown up a lot in maturity over the years that they had been elementals and his feeling of determination had grown as well.

"That should be my line." Zack replied as the two watched, back-to-back, as the blasts of energy got closer.

"Yeah, well, I had a feeling you weren't going to say it."

They waited until the last second, the energy getting as close as it could and they moved. Under Rhuben's command, Zack and Cody glowed a bright red and a bright blue as they felt the most intense rush of energy they had ever felt move through their bodies. They swung their staff and sword and a rush of flames and water moved back towards the blast of energy. With as much energy as they could muster, the two of them blocked the attack and fell to their knees, worn out.

"Now that we have them out of the way!" Zhane whipped a large gun-like object out from the back of his belt and pointed it over at Riley, Rhuben, Max, Tapeworm, and Crystal. "Say goodbye" he smirked and pulled the trigger.

* * *

Wind raced through Koto's ears as he ran back from WingzCorp as fast as he could, his breathing labored and his hands, arms, and legs getting scratched up as he ran through the trees. As soon as the fight broke out, he knew that the others were going to need as much help as possible and went to get the others as fast as he could. It was ironic, usually they would be running to go and attack Zack, Cody, and the others. Now here he was trying to save them.

He stopped short, seeing Zhane in the distance, hoping that he or the others that were with him would spot him as he edged closer. He watched as Rhuben disappeared into the darkness along with Riley, Max, Tapeworm, and Crystal and then watched as Zhane and the others unleashed an attack on Zack and Cody and watched in amazement as the two blocked the attack, although it took a lot out of them. Koto continued to move forward but stopped when he saw that Zhane had taken a gun out of his pocket and turned it to the others and said something and pulled the trigger.

_Koto stared at the twilight colored sky, feeling the gentle breeze tickle his neck._

"_What are you doing there, huh?" Someone asked. He turned around and smiled. Smiled at that red haired girl that was the only person who could make him smile genuinely._

"_Nothing, I'm just relaxing." He replied as she walked towards him._

"_Well, that's great, 'cause it's just what I'm seeking: relaxation." She said, staring up at the sky too. There was silence for about a minute, and then he decided to speak up._

"_Do you like it here?" He asked._

"_You mean… being with the Black Wolves?" She asked and he nodded. "Well…" She sighed and thought for a second. "Everything we do is wrong, but I can't deny that you guys are like my second family,"_

"_I feel like the things we do sound less and less wrong by each day that passes. I don't know what to believe in anymore…"_

"_Just believe in yourself. You have to listen to your heart before listening to your mind." The girl said, smiling._

"_Rikku…"_

Without thinking, Koto ran forward as fast as he could and leapt in between Zhane and Riley, Rhuben, Max, Tapeworm, and Crystal. Zack, Cody, Zhane, and the others watched in shock as the purple beam that came out of the gun hit Koto in the side.

He whined.

Startled eyes looked over at him and saw him, silver fur grayed with shadows, looked around with glowing eyes. A wet splatter of sound hit the ground by the Koto's left shoulder where the purple beam had hit him. Koto's triangular ears perked, and he made a low, growling, sound in his throat as his green eyes shifted to Zhane. Zhane smirked and stood up straight, the movement causing Koto to try and stand, blood-covered teeth barred in fanged spikes (he had obviously hit his mouth when he hit the ground, his green eyes heating once more.

But he fell back to ground again, his left foreleg not being able to hold him up.

"Well, he wasn't who I was aiming for but-"Zhane quickly turned his head.

"_Judgment of Hades_"

Zhane jumped up and a blast of energy moved under him and aimed towards two of the four girls that were with him. They weren't able to move and they were hit and were pushed back a little, but seemed unharmed. Zhane looked over at the girls and they all jumped into the air and then disappeared in a flash of green light.

"You ok?"

Zack, Cody, and the others turned to see who it was.

"Reihu" Rhuben commented, not that surprised to see him…

* * *

**A/N: So we have mystery about what Christian knows about Halo Syndicate, something about hers and the Jacksons' fathers, a little bit of romance with Zack and Riley, a lot of action, and suspense at the end. What happened to Koto and what is Reihu going to do? You guys are going to have to wait until the next chapter to see what happens next. I already have so many plans with this story. *Cue evil laughter here*. I know, I'm evil. Any questions that you guys have? Anything confusing you so far? I'll update again soon.**

**Anyway, for the battle, I needed Bailey out of there and the reason why will come in the next chapter. Oh and the flashback with Koto and why Riley was referred to as Rikku and with having red-hair is going to be explained in the next chapter as well.**

**-Riley**


	21. Some Questions Answered

CHAPTER TWENTY

* * *

"Bailey, they're fine." Patrick stated reassuringly.

I looked over at him, slightly pausing from my pacing back and forth, and then started to pace again. He was most likely right, but I couldn't help but worry anyway.

"Yeah," I almost didn't hear Noah say anything as his voice was so soft, it was something that was really hard for me to get used to. "They've faced these kinds of fights before, and there's no way that they would let Halo Syndicate, no matter how strong they are, get the best of them."

"If you say so," I replied, biting my thumbnail.

I didn't know what to think, not being able to see what was going on, it just made me frustrated. I mean, I understood why I was the one that had to be taken away, just in case I was a target, but I still wish I could know what was happening to them. '_Zack…Cody…guys I hope you're ok_.' I started to pace again, moving my thumbnail from my mouth and brushing my hair from my face as I went.

Patrick and Noah continued to sit quietly on the windowsill on the other side of the room quietly. I glanced over at them, wondering how they could be so calm and took the time to look around the room that I was in. There was really not much here, and I wasn't sure what kind of room it was. There were a few windows, one chair (which seemed like it would fall apart the moment someone touched it) and the lights were dim. I knew that I was in WingzCorp, but I wasn't even sure how I was able to get in here. All I knew was that when Patrick and Noah started to get close to the building, I suddenly felt really, really tired, and must have blacked out for a second, because as soon as I had woken up, I was in this room with Patrick and Noah.

"Where are we exactly?" I asked, turning to the twin boys.

"WingzCorp." They replied in unison.

"I know that much, I meant where in the building are we?"

"Can't tell you until everyone is here."

"But-"

"Shh," Patrick raised a finger to his lips and turned to Noah, who had tilted his head to the side slightly and was looking straight ahead. "He's listening." I watched Noah for a second and he didn't blink for a few moments, then he straightened up and blinked once.

"They're here." He stated and stood up, waiting. Patrick stood up as well and as I turned towards the entrance of the room, there was a bright flash of light and Zack, Cody, and the others fell to the floor in a heap.

"Are you guys ok?" Patrick asked, hurrying over to his brother, sisters, and cousin and helped them off of the floor. He hovered around them for a few minutes, making sure that they were ok before taking a step back and looking around. "What happened?" he asked when he saw the bewildered looks on everyone's faces. He then looked down at the wolf on the floor. "And what happened to Koto?"

"Yeah, please explain." Noah added.

As Sydney moved around the room, healing everyone one, Zack explained everything that had happened. Once Zhane and the four girls had attacked, they were ruthless and that just emphasized how little we knew about them and how strong they were. Apparently Zack and Cody were able to block a barrage of attacks that were headed their way and then Zhane had pulled out this gun thing and was going to shoot Riley, Rhuben, Crystal, Max, and Tapeworm with it, but Koto had come back, from getting Reihu to come help him, and was shot by the blast and had turned into a wolf.

"He hasn't turned back since then," Tapeworm remarked as he looked over the wolf that was slumped on the floor, his green eyes blazing with anger. "So I'm guessing that whatever was in that bullet or beam of energy or whatever caused him to reluctantly turn into his wolf form and get stuck there."

"But how is that even possible?" Max asked, shaking her head.

"Ever since Halo Syndicate split from Wingz Corp they've been working really hard to advance their science and technology." Reihu commented from the corner of the room where he was sitting quietly. "And I can say that they've had a lot of success with it."

"So do you know what that gun thing was?" Crystal questioned, holding out her arm as Sydney pressed a small hand to her arm, the scrape that was there disappearing almost immediately. "And how it turned Koto into a wolf."

"We have an idea," Reihu replied and then tossed his head towards the wall. "The rest of WingzCorp and I have an idea." He reiterated. "We also think that we know where Core went as well." He ran his fingers through his hair and then looked over at the Jacksons, smirking as a flash of something went through his eyes. "It must be hard for you guys to be back here again." He commented.

"Shut up, Reihu." Rhuben commented tiredly, running her fingers her forehead.

"Sorry, did I strike a nerve, _Rumiku_?" he questioned tauntingly. His smirk grew wider as Rhuben shot a cold glare his way, but surprisingly he didn't flinch or look away, he continued to look right at her.

'_Wow_,' I thought to myself, impressed. '_I haven't really seen anyone get glared at from Riley or Rhuben and not flinch. They must have a past together that the rest of us don't know about_.' I shook my head. '_The others new that they were in WingzCorp before; you're the only one that's out of the loop_.' Something odd then struck with me.

"Why'd you call her Rumiku?" I questioned.

"When we had first decided to go into WingzCorp we thought that it was a good idea to make sure that the police or anyone couldn't find us," Patrick explained after a minute of silence. "I mean, the orphanage was going to notice that five people suddenly disappeared, so we altered our appearance." He nervously rubbed his arm as he looked around the room. "No, Syd, and I grew our hair out longer and I dyed mine completely blonde, Noah dyed his completely silver, and Sydney dyed his completely blue as Riley and Rhuben dyed their red and silver. Then we took different colored contacts, mine, Riles, Rhubes' contacts were prescription, and we put them in to change our eye color. Then, since we're a third Japanese, we went by the Japanese names that our parents gave us."

"Actually, Patrick and Noah went by different nicknames, Sparky and Physic, I continued to go by my real name, and Riley and Rhuben went by their Japanese names Rikku and Rumiku." Sydney spoke up. "We continued to do that while we were in WingzCorp, but as soon as we were old enough to realize what we were doing was wrong and that we shouldn't be doing it, we left, took the contacts out, dyed our hair back to black, and then went by our names again." He shook his head and let out a bitter laugh. "We thought that we would never come back here again."

"And look where you ended up," Reihu commented with a smile. "The traitors are all back here."

"Reihu, knock it off!" Zack finally spoke up. I guess he was really tired after that battle, it was the only time that I had heard him be quiet for so long. "Right now we're fighting a common enemy and it's not going to help us if we're at each other's throats all the time."

Reihu laughed scornfully. "We're too different, there's too much history between us to even try and help each other." He shook his head. "It's just a coincidence that we're fighting the same enemy, we're not fighting side by side or anything. Got that?" He looked over everyone in the room and got to his feet, staring to walk out. Koto got up and padded over to him. "C'mon, I'll show you to your rooms."

"Wait, we're staying _here_?" Max spluttered. "I thought we were just going to rest here and-"

"Halo Syndicate would find us too easily if we even tried to get out of here," Cody shook his head. "Somehow, they're able to keep finding us, no matter where we go." He looked serious. "If it's hard for anyone to find WingzCorp, then its probably a good idea to stay here until we know exactly what our plan of action is going to be."

"What did you expect?" Reihu spoke up. "That you were going to stay in a five-star hotel? It's a war out there and this is one of the only places that are safe enough for you guys to stay without being detected."

We got up and followed him out of the room.

"Wow, Reihu has really changed." I heard Riley mutter behind me.

"I was thinking the same thing." Rhuben spoke up.

They didn't say anything after that.

I just continued to think about what Cody had said. _"Halo Syndicate would find us too easily if we even tried to get out of here. Somehow, they're able to keep finding us, no matter where we go." _I let out a breath of air, frustrated.

'_How is it that they keep finding us_?' I asked myself.

_Because you're the target Bailey,_ I heard the voice in my head again. _You're the reason that they have been coming after them. You're the reason that you found out that Zack and Cody were elementals in the first place. It's all because of you, and it was supposed to happen._

_

* * *

_**A/N: Sorry I took so long to update this you guys (and sorry it was a short chapter). College can get in the way sometimes. But I swear that it's not going to take as long next time for me to update. I hope that you guys like the chapter anyway. Some questions were answered. Read and Review.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riley**


	22. A little bit of sibling rivalry

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

* * *

"Early morning training session, you guys know the drill." Rhuben called as she walked into the kitchen area where everyone was eating. "Everyone but Cody is going to be lifting weights." Bailey looked over at Cody and frowned a little when she saw him smile over at her. "You're working with me on sparring today." She stated, looking at the chart that Sydney had made shortly after they had gotten to WingzCorp.

"What time?" Cody asked, using a napkin to wipe milk off of his lip.

"Half hour." She replied simply.

"Are you closing off the whole training center?" Tori asked as she hovered in the doorway of the room. She took a small step forward, but then moved back almost as soon as she did so. "Tora and I may need it."

Sydney looked over at her but didn't say anything. There was no question that everyone was feeling really awkward around each other. Although everyone agreed that they were fighting a common enemy, it wasn't like they were going to throw everything that they had experienced with each other out into the wind.

What was worse was that Koto was still a wolf and no one understood why he was stuck that way. He could still talk like a normal human, but usually conversed in growls and barks, to which only Max and Riley could understand. But it was still weird for everyone. WingzCorp did their own thing, if they weren't watching TV they were training or sleeping, and they kept to themselves. While everyone else, to which Zack had dubbed them the Suite Life Gang long ago, just went on as if nothing was going on. They continued to go on the internet and watch DVDs in the few entertainment rooms that WingzCorp had, just to hold onto a sense of normality. The two groups tried to stay as far away from each other as possible and only interacted when they needed to.

"Only for an hour or so," Rhuben replied patiently. Tori nodded and disappeared from the doorway.

"What am I going to be doing while you guys are training?" Bailey asked Rhuben, brushing her hair behind her ears. She stared at the girl and Rhuben raised an eyebrow and looked over at Noah, who lightly shrugged in reply, stealing a piece of toast off of Patrick's plate when he wasn't looking.

"Maybe she should work with us," Zack spoke up after a minute of silence.

"Do you think that's a good idea?" Crystal asked as she raised an eyebrow herself. "I mean, we don't even know what kind of powers Bailey has and if she would be able to handle what we do to stay in shape."

"Then we can tone it down for her," Zack replied with a careless shrug. "Anything than letting her be an easy target for Halo Syndicate."

"Who says she'd be an easy target?" Cody asked, turning to his brother with a hard look in his eyes. Zack calmly looked back at him.

"Even if she _is_ an elemental, which at this case I don't think she is, whatever power she has she hasn't been able to control yet," Zack explained. "And whatever power she has probably doesn't let her have the ability to run faster and lift as much weights as we can." He looked around at everyone else that had fallen silent when Cody had spoken. They could always tell when the two of them were about to get into a fight. "So why risk it? She needs to learn how to control it."

"You're acting like-"

"What am I acting like is a realistic person." Zack cut in, snapping at his brother. "Instead of defending her at every chance you get, which I think is truly pathetic by the way, you should realize that for her, starting out slow is the best way to cope with this, so we can gradually see what her powers can actually do, instead of just jumping right into it where one lapse of control can blow us sky high!"

"Is there something that you're trying to say about Bailey?" Cody demanded as he stood up, slapping his hands onto the table as he glared down at his brother.

"There's nothing that I'm _trying _to say," Zack replied as he continued to sit down and eat his cereal. "I've already said it."

In the corner of the room, Koto growled low in his throat and Max and Riley turned his way.

"Don't even think about it," they chorused. Koto let out a sound that would have been equivalent to a 'humph' from a human and then spoke up.

"I've said it once before and I'll say it again," Bailey blinked and rubbed her eyes. It was still hard to believe that Koto had been turned into a wolf, and it was still hard to see that a normal human voice could come out of his mouth. "You guys are all talk and no play. What I would do in this situation, is get even stronger, continue to go to the gym to bulk up and whatnot and then go after Halo Syndicate."

"But we don't have an idea of where they are." Tapeworm protested.

"Kagenui has found something," Koto replied after a second of silence as he got to his paws. "And as soon as he figures out where Core has gone and some other things that have been bothering us for a while, then we'll let you know on a need to know basis."

"One question," Patrick stopped Koto from leaving the room. "As much as I hate to say this," he paused. "Thank you for saving my sister, my cousin, and my friends." He paused and looked around before looking back at Koto with narrowed eyes. "But why'd you do it?"

"Once a BlackWolf, always a BlackWolf" Koto replied simply and left the room.

* * *

"Stupid Zack," Cody muttered to himself as he wiped sweat off of his forehead and pushed himself off of the mats, ignoring the stinging in his elbow. He had gotten a rug burn as he tried to keep himself from falling to the ground. "Why does he always have to go and diss Bailey like that? Does he not realize that she's a part of us now?"

"Heads up!" Rhuben called.

"Ugh!" Cody grunted in pain as Rhuben shoved a fist into his chest and he stumbled back and hit the ground, breathing heavily. Rhuben sighed as she pulled her hair back into a ponytail and fanned the back of her neck with her hand before letting it go again.

Rhuben let out a sigh that sounded like a school teacher getting impatient with a student after the 6th time of trying to explain something. "Cody, you're still doing it wrong." Rhuben stated as she crossed her arms over her chest. "If you're not getting it now, we should just stop and continue with it la-"

"No!" Cody got back to his feet and held his hands up in a fighting stance. "I can do this! Just let me keep trying!"

Rhuben just looked at him as he continued to breathe heavily, his fists up in front of his face. His face was red and sweat was dripping down his cheeks, causing his hair to stick to his forehead, although Rhuben had barely broken a sweat. The two of them were in the training room sparring, and there were some moves that Sydney had come up with, saying that they would probably be a good defense against anyone in Halo Syndicate. Zack, Max, and Tapeworm had picked them up pretty easily, but Cody was having a lot of trouble with it. He was trying too hard, that's what his problem was. He was thinking too much about it and because he was thinking too much, he couldn't see how he would lower his defense and cause Rhuben to have an opening to easily knock him away.

"Codes," Rhuben spoke quietly as she walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Relax." She waited until she felt Cody's shoulder slump before pushing in his shoulders and forcing him to sit down. "You're letting what Zack said about Bailey get to your head." She reasoned and smirked when Cody blushed. "Which doesn't surprise me, but my advice to you is to not let your feelings for her get in the way of what we're trying to get done."

"Do you even understand how hard that is?" Cody asked, sounding miserable. "Not only do I feel guilty that we had to bring her into this…our other life in the first place, but I also feel bad that it seems that no one trusts her. It can't be easy for her."

"It wasn't easy for you either, when you were first starting out, "Rhuben reminded him. "But she'll get through it and everyone else will get over it. Besides Max, Tapeworm, Patrick, Noah, Sydney, and you already are on her side."

"What about you?" Cody asked.

"You know me," Rhuben smirked again. "It will take me a long time to trust that she's supposed to be one of us. The only reason I think that we should keep her around is because she could be useful to us, she could be an elemental, and if she's around then I know where my brothers are to keep them safe." She twisted her mouth to the side. "Plus, it's the age old ploy of keep your friends close but your enemies closer. If she comes to be a real threat to us, we can nip it in the bud right there and then."

"Blunt as always." Cody reasoned.

"Exactly." Rhuben nodded. "Now what else is going on with you?" She questioned as she sat across from him. Cody just sighed and rested his chin in his hands, which were propped up by his elbows on his knees. "You can tell me, we're best friends."

"Since when?" Cody snorted. "Since you guys keep disappearing and not telling us where you go and then continue to come back and act like nothing has happened?"

"Ok, I actually deserve that." Rhuben stated simply as she ran her fingers through her hair. "But it's like we said before, when we can tell you, we will." She shrugged one shoulder. "Every other time was just to get some time to rest. We've been moving practically ever since we were born."

"Yeah, I can see how that can be a problem," Cody muttered and then sighed heavily again. "I don't know I'm just sick and tired of doing nothing." He finally admitted. "We've been here at WingzCorp for a week and a half now, and we haven't done anything to try and figure out what Halo Syndicate is up to." He wrinkled his nose. "Which is odd considering Zack is normally the one that's up and rearing to go, but now he is the one that seems to not want to do anything about it and I'm the one that's jumping to go."

"Ok, you know that's not true," Rhuben stated, her eyes narrowing a fraction. "Syd and Crys and Max and Tape have been looking all over this place for a clue as to what Halo Syndicate has been working on. We've gotten all that we could out of Kagenui, Caos, Tori, and Cindy. Core left without telling them what was going on, so they about as much as we do."

"Do you believe that?" Cody asked, lifting his head to look at her.

"Yes I do," Rhuben stated as she brushed her hair off of her forehead. "Otherwise they wouldn't be acting like they don't know what to do." She twisted her mouth to the side. "I mean they don't have any family, and the only person that they knew their whole lives is gone, what would you do?"

"Good point," Cody reasoned. He looked at her for a second and then looked away before looking at her again. "Can I ask you something?"

"We were friends, and then we dated, now we're friend again," Rhuben smiled a little. "I think that qualifies for you to be able to ask me a question."

"How does it feel to be back here?" Cody asked.

Rhuben didn't seem fazed by the question. She knew that it was going to come up eventually, so she might as well get it over with now. "Well, it's kind of weird," she started slowly. "I mean, DeathLiger and I…we've gone through so much here and being back here just made everything come flooding back. But I also know that having been in WingzCorp and leaving it was the best decision I could have made and I'm glad that I did make the decision, I'm glad that I knew that what I was doing was wrong. But being back here now is kind of weird because I feel like I'm being pulled in two different directions."

"Like being one of us, and being one of them again." Cody nodded. "It makes sense, it was something that you knew for a majority of your lifetime and now that you're back here, you're in the same room that you lived in before, and you're wearing some of the clothes that the DarkLions have because we didn't have many clothes to bring with us in the first place." He shrugged. "Let alone the fact that we don't know how long we're going to be here." He smiled. "I just have one thing to say about it though."

"What's that?" Rhuben asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Red isn't your color." Cody replied, talking about the DarkLions' color scheme of red and black clothes.

"Yeah, I know." Rhuben rolled her eyes before lying back on the mat, putting her arms behind her head.

"Rhu-Rhu!" Rhuben sat up and turned around to see Noah standing in the door way to the massive room, his voice had echoed in out from the hallway. Noah's eyes trailed over the room and he shuddered for a second, probably remembering what it was like to have to work there before. He then looked over at Rhuben and hurried over to them. "Cody, Rhuben, c'mon, you guys have to heart his."

"What's up, buddy?" Cody asked as he got to his feet and placed a hand on Noah's shoulder. "You seem really worried."

"Weirded out is the better term." Noah replied, sounding as if he was in a daze. "I just figured out that…part of what happened to us when we were younger was a lie."

"What do you mean, No?" Rhuben demanded sharply.

"Riley didn't kill our parents," Noah replied. "Halo Syndicate did."

* * *

**A/N: A bit of sibling rivalry brewing here. So I wanted to show how Rhuben and Cody got along, since they used to date before. They still have a friendly relationship because they broke up on mutual terms. Plus I wanted to bring in some of the discomfort that the Jacksons had about being back at WingzCorp. Now they're on their way to go find Christian and Aaron, along with Koto and Reihu being with them, so they can get some more answers. We know that I could be possible that Riley didn't kill her parents, so what did happen that night as her parents and Crystal's mother died on the exact same day. Hmmmm, you'll find out! :) I'll update again soon.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riley**


	23. Christian, Core, and Reed

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

**A/N: Back in Bailey's POV**

**

* * *

**"What do you mean I didn't kill my parents?" Riley aimed her question and sharp glare over towards Kagenui. "I saw the fucking fire come out of my fucking hands!"

"Language" Rhuben reminded her sister, tilting her head over towards Sydney. I watched Riley looked over at him and her face softened, but her body still held a lot of tension, I could see that she was holding it in her shoulders, they were nearly up to her ears.

We had been doing weight lifting as well as running on the treadmill when Noah had come into the room to give us the news. He burst into the room and told Riley something that I couldn't hear, but from the way that Crystal, Patrick, and Sydney had immediately moved around them, shortly before looking shocked themselves I knew that it was something big and I was right. Kagenui had apparently found some more information about WingzCorp and Halo Syndicate, things that a lot of people couldn't imagine.

"And your mother," Kagenui ignored Riley and turned his gaze to Crystal, who looked back at him evenly. "She did the same day?"

"It was a car accident," Crystal replied after a minute of silence, nodding. "I was in the car with her…I don't know how I survived."

"Trust me, none of you were supposed to." Kagenui replied.

"What is this about?" Max spat sharply. "Did you bring us here just so you could torture our friends with some memories that they would rather not think about?" Her eyes narrowed as she glared at Kagenui. "How can you just sit there and just-"

"Max!" Tapeworm shot a hand out and slapped it over his girlfriend's mouth. "I'm sure there's a lot more to the story or Kagenui wouldn't have come and gotten us in the first place."

"You actually believe that?" Cody snorted skeptically from where he was sitting on the floor.

"Innocent until Proven Guilty." Crystal reminded him. I watched as Cody looked over at her and the two stared at each other for a few seconds, before Cody smiled and nodded. Crystal gave a small smile back and turned her attention back to Cody.

I felt jealousy wash over me as I watched the exchange, no matter how hard I tried to keep it down. Sure, I liked Cody, but it's not like he couldn't talk to any girl without having to have some sort of connection with her. But Cody could be a big of a flirt as Zack is when he really wants to, so I knew that I couldn't put it past him. I shook my head.

_Ask him about his dating habits later,_ I scolded myself as I turned my attention back to Kagenui as well. _Right now we're in the fight of our lives and we need to know as much as we can as to what is really going on with Halo Syndicate._

Kagenui looked at everyone in the room to make sure that they were paying attention. The BlackWolves, DarkLions, DragonGang, and Cindy (who was pretty much the only one left of Spirit-X) were sitting in the room with us as well. Apparently the news had to deal with them as well as us. It just made me want to know even more now.

"After countless times of rooting around in Core's office since he left we weren't sure that he had actually left anything," Kagenui stated, cracking his knuckles. The popping sound caused me to jump as it broke the silence of the room. "But since you guys got here we started looking against and found a lot of stuff." He pulled a book out from behind his back and tossed it over to Noah, who caught it before it hit his face. He pulled out another one and tossed it over to Crystal.

"What are they?" Zack asked curiously.

"They're journals," Crystal replied as she looked over at the one that Noah was holding before looking at her own. She opened it up and read a little bit before her head shot up and looked over at Noah, who looked shocked as well. "They-they're journals from when our dads worked with Core?" She looked at Noah again. "Right?"

"Right." Noah nodded.

"Wait," I held up a hand, confused. "Your dad worked with _Core_?" I asked feeling suddenly confused as to why I was the only one that was legitimately upset. "The guy that had caused all of them to chase after you guys for years?"

"This was before Core turned out to be evil," Reihu commented calmly. "Before he ruined our lives." He added under his breath.

"Yeah, well, everybody in this room has been affected by him, not just you." Rhuben replied as she looked at him sharply. Reihu looked at her and for a second he looked younger to me, I don't know how to explain it, but he looked like he was about three years younger with the hurt look that he gave her. It cleared almost instantly.

"Yes, everyone in this room has been affected by him," Kagenui agreed.

"So what does this have to do with their parents' death and Halo Syndicate?" Cindy asked, getting her back to the point.

"Alright," Kagenui scratched his forehead and then held up the black book that was left in his hands. "All three of them kept journals of everything that they had been studying over the years, and Core's journal goes further back than those two does."

"You read our father's journal?" Patrick asked, his eyes narrowing. "It's not your property!"

"But if he wanted to find out more about why Core has abandoned this place, maybe all three of their journals would have helped." I spoke up, coming to his defense. I don't know why I did, but I knew that people did things for a reason and it made a lot of sense.

Kagenui looked startled, as if he was surprised that I had come to his defense as well. He turned to Kuroko, who was leaning against the wall at the other side of the room. Kuroko just had his eyes trained on his cousin, not saying anything. Kagenui then turned back to the book in his hand and held it up.

"According to Core's journal when they were younger Core, Christian Manning, and Reed Jackson all knew that they wanted to be scientists. Of what, they didn't know, but they had always excelled in science and math and were fascinated with the paranormal things that people couldn't explain. One day while he was doing some research, this is after college at this point, and found out about people that were able to do 'strange things' such as controlling an element."

"Elementals." Tori confirmed with a nod.

"Gee, ya think?" Tora replied sarcastically.

"Around this time Reed and Christian had found some of the same things while doing research and the three had come together to talk about what they had found. They then agreed that they wanted to continue researching what they found, which is why Christian moved around so much," Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Crystal sit up a little straighter. "He was going to different countries to see if he could find any sense of elementals in other places. Twice a month they would come in contact, face to face and reveal what each of them had found."

"They all knew that there was a reason that the three of them had found out about elementals and no one else and decided to continue gathering as much research as possible, which was hard as the ones that had the information of elementals up on the internet were in hiding and were very hard to find."

"I can't imagine why," Sydney commented as he shook his head. "If someone just found out that they were an elemental, they would try to keep it a secret or be labeled as an outcast."

"Exactly," I nodded over at the small boy. "And in our society going along with the norm is what you want, being labeled as different or an outcast will cause a lot of problems, so they wanted to make sure that they didn't cause anyone to worry."

"Right," Kagenui seemed like he was getting annoyed of being interrupted, but his facial features didn't show anything. His green eyes darted back and forth and I could now see how calculated they looked, exactly like a wolf's. I looked over at Koto in the corner of the room; he was sitting by Kuroko's feet, still a wolf. No one, not even Sydney, Cody, Crystal, or Tapeworm could figure out how to change him back or what was in the gun that Zhane used. "Caos knows more."

Caos stood up and took Kagenui's place at the front. He looked like a lion in human form so I could see how he was part of the DarkLions. His hair was a dark golden brown and as were his eyes. The way he stood commanded authority and from what I had seen from being around WingzCorp the past week, he had the reflexes of a lion as well. I didn't really know who the leader of the DarkLions was, but it seemed to me that the first in command changed all the time.

"As the years went by and Christian and Reed started to make families, Core started to become obsessed with finding out as much as he could with elementals. What Christian and Reed didn't know was at the time Core had started to devise a plan that he was going to use the power of the elementals, after he found them, for himself and to try and expose it, to show everyone that he made the biggest scientific discovery." Caos explained in a voice that was deeper than I had expected from him. "When he had finally told Reed and Christian his plan, because they could see him changing, they were horrified and didn't agree with him. They told them that their discovery had to stay a secret and Core relented at first. But behind their backs he continued to work on his plan, as well as joining forces with the head of Halo Syndicate."

"The head of Halo Syndicate?" Zack lifted his head when he heard Caos say those words. He leapt to his feet. "Do you know where he is? What's his name?"

"Zack, don't get too impulsive," Cody chided his twin. "Just sit down and-"

"I'm _tired_ of sitting here, we know more than we have ever known before and we can use that information to go out and get Halo Syndicate!" Zack insisted as he looked at his brother. "I know that you feel the same way, I can _feel_ it." He insisted.

"While that is true," Cody got to his feet as well. "We don't know _everything_ that we need to know. We _still_ need to find out more information about Halo Syndicate; all we know now is WingzCorp. So we should continue to stay here and gather our resources before we just go running out there putting ourselves in danger." Zack scowled and looked at the floor. Cody smiled and placed a hand on Zack's shoulder. "But you're right; I _am_ getting tired of sitting here. But it's like those video games that you play all the time, you learn all you can about your enemy before you defeat him."

"Yeah," Zack grinned. "You're right. And that tactic helped me beat you as well." He lightly punched Cody on the shoulder. I couldn't help but smile. No matter how much they fought with each other, it was obvious that Zack and Cody really cared about each other.

"If we can get this love-fest over with!" Riley snapped. I looked at her and noticed that she and her brothers and sister and cousin all looked extremely tense. Their hands were clasped in their laps and I could see that they were squeezing them so tightly their fingers were turning white. Crystal on the other hand, had her fingernails up to her mouth and was gently chewing on them.

Yep, they were definitely related.

Caos nodded and continued. "He started to work with the head of Halo Syndicate and the two of them had the same idea for a while. But then Halo Syndicate disagreed with what Core wanted and the two of them broke apart. But since Halo Syndicate knew that what they wanted was different than WingzCorp and that they could potentially be in the way, the leader of Halo Syndicate targeted Core and who he was working with."

"Our dad and Uncle Christian." Noah gasped.

"Right," Caos nodded again. "Halo Syndicate made a plan to get rid of Reed, Christian, and Core so they wouldn't be able to stand in his way. At this time Reed and Christian were becoming suspicious of Core and were starting to figure out what he was doing so Halo Syndicate wanted to get rid of them first, just in case they found out about Halo Syndicate." He turned to the Jacksons and Crystal. "So I guess you guys already know the rest of the story." They nodded. "But to the rest of you, I'll explain what happened. Halo Syndicate took out two patrols to go after Reed and Christian, who were stationed in two different parts of the world, Reed in Australia, his home, and Christian in Canada, his home."

"They had it planned out, Reed and his family were to die in a house fire, Christian was to die in a car accident with his family, but things didn't turn out as planned. For reasons unknown to Core or us, Christian wasn't in the car at the time of the car accident that took his wife's life. Halo Syndicate had planted a device on the car that at the peak of traffic caused the back tires of the car to blow, so people would think that it was a regular car accident. Unfortunately for them there were things that they didn't expect, they didn't expect Christian not to be there, as he had disappeared weeks before, and they didn't expect the roads to be empty. But the device went off as planned which caused the car to swerve and roll over and crash. Thus killing Kristin, but what was shocking was that Crystal, who was in the car, didn't die. Halo Syndicate had gone over to the car before the paramedics arrived and looked into it, surprised to see that Crystal was still alive, they fled before anyone got to the scene."

"Back in Australia, at around the same time, Riley and Rhuben had just gotten back from the beach and Halo Syndicate knew that everyone was in the house, as they had been staking it out all day. They watched as Riley and Rhuben had some sort of an argument with their parents and knew that they could use that to their advantage, if something went wrong. And of course something _did_ go wrong, they didn't except Riley to learn of her element that night, but it still worked to their advantage. Riley _had _set fire to a small portion of the house, but that's not what killed her parents. Halo Syndicate had planted a bomb in the basement and everyone was on the top two floors, making it that they wouldn't be able to get out. But for some reason, the bomb delayed, so when the fire started The Jacksons hurried out of the house, and Halo Syndicate couldn't do anything about it as the firefighters were on their way and their neighbors were already out of their houses trying to see what was going on. When Julius went back in to get to their parents, whom he didn't know was already dead due to smoke inhalation, he had just enough time to get out of the house before the bomb went off."

"Halo Syndicate had failed on both ends. While Crystal went off to the hospital, Riley, Rhuben, Patrick, Noah, and Sydney were sent to the hospital and then to the orphanage Julius had run into the woods as he was disoriented from the smoke and the house blowing up. He was running down the streets looking for his brothers and sisters and Halo Syndicate decided to try again and hit Julius with a car, putting him into a coma. Thinking he was dead, the two patrols went back to Halo Syndicate headquarters to tell the news. When the leader found out that not everything that gone the way that they had planned, they went into hiding."

"Then years passed and Core went along with his plan." Rhuben nodded and then smiled bitterly. "Huh, you'd think that since his friends died he would have shown a little bit of remorse instead of trying to capture his kids." She shook her head.

There was silence as everyone tried to digest what we have just been told.

_Unless he was doing it to help them. _The voice was back. _There are still some things that no one knows. WingzCorp isn't your enemy, it never was. Things aren't what they seem. There's someone in the room that you can't trust._

'_Who_?' I replied desperately. '_Who is the one we can't trust?'_

The voice was gone again.

"What I don't get," Crystal's voice shook a little and as I turned to her, I could see a bit of a tear in her eye. "Is why did Dad leave a few weeks before the car accident? If he knew what was going on, why didn't he take us into hiding with him? And why hasn't he told me any of this before?"

"Maybe" I spoke up quietly, trying to soothe her. "Maybe he was trying to protect you from the truth."

Crystal looked over at me with an unreadable expression. But I had a guess as to what she was feeling. Hurt, betrayed, angry, heart-broken, knowing these things, more things about her past that she didn't know before must have really been hurting her. Finally, her face turned apathetic and she stood up.

"What do _you _know?" she spat and left the room.

* * *

**A/N: Alright, so Crystal's mother's death and her father's disappearance has been explained as well as the Jacksons' parents death has been explained. I have a REALLY great idea to this story from a dream I had last night and I can't wait for you guys to see it. What would you like to see in the next few chapters? They're going to have action in it as well as having some other characters come back, but I would like to know if you think I should show some more of their relationships with each other, or the awkwardness with them and WingzCorp, or more about Christian's and Reed's past, more of the Jacksons' past with WingzCorp, whatever. Let me know.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riley**

**PS –You're going to be seeing more of Bailey's 'powers' in the next chapters.**


	24. A look into the past

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

* * *

"Ugh, we really need to go clothes shopping." I stated as I held up the gray t-shirt that DragonGang had lent me. "I mean, we don't have many clothes, only the ones that we brought and the ones that WingzCorp have given us."

"It's not like we can get out of here and go shopping like every other teenager in the world does," Max replied seriously as she stood in front of her bed, only in a bra and a pair of jeans as she looked over her own miniscule collection of clothes. "I mean, you and Zack and Cody are the ones that are the main targets and it's dangerous. It's even dangerous if Tape or I go out there, Bailey."

"I know, but-"

"Hey, just forget it." Max grabbed a shirt and pulled it on, brushing off her shoulders. She then turned to me with a confident smile. "This whole thing is going to be over with soon," she nodded and quickly braided her hair in pigtails. "Trust me, if there's anybody that can beat these guys, its Zack and Cody."

* * *

I held my breath as I looked around the corner, seeing an empty hallway. I let out a sigh of relief and held m bag to my side as I hurried down the hallway and to the front door. As soon as I laid a hand on the brass I heard a voice behind me.

"And where do you think you're going?" I let out a short scream and turned around to see Koto standing behind me, his eyebrows raised and his arms crossed over his chest. "It's not safe out there for you to go out there." He stated, not even giving me a chance to answer. "You could get killed."

"Y-you changed back." I realized it as soon as I said the words out loud. "When did that happen?"

"Earlier this morning," Koto replied shortly. "Did you really think that you were going to get out of here without being seen?" He snorted. "There are cameras everywhere." He nodded above my head and I turned to see that he was right, there was a camera sitting in the corner, by the front door. "Just to make sure something like this doesn't happen."

"Why'd you stop me?" I demanded, holding my bag in front of me as I took a small step back, glaring at the wolf teenager in front of me. "What do you want?"

"What're you so freaked out about?" Koto replied shortly.

_WingzCorp isn't your enemy, it never was. Things aren't what they seem. There's someone in the room that you can't trust._

_'__Who__?' I replied desperately. '__Who is the one we can't trust?'_

_The voice was gone again._

'_Is it him?_' I thought as I continued to glare at Koto, who looked back at me as if he was bored. '_Is __he__ the one that we can't trust? Is he going to kill me right now?_'

"What's going on?" Koto turned around and I smiled a little when I saw Cody was standing at the other end of the hallway. His eyes flashed over to Koto, before looking at me, and then back to Koto again as he walked towards us. "Don't make me ask again." He snapped to Koto.

"Relax, lover-boy," Koto stated with a snort as he rolled his eyes, turning to Cody. "I just caught this chick leaving and I was wondering why, since she's the one that Halo Syndicate is after and everything." He replied. Cody looked sharply at Koto, not seeming to be surprised that he had turned back to a human, and then looked at me, his eyes softening.

"Bailey, don't you know how dangerous it is to try and sneak off away from here?" Cody asked quietly. "I mean, we don't even really know where we are, and," he paused. "Koto is right. You're the one that Halo Syndicate is after; it will be dangerous for you to go out there by yourself."

"I can't just sit around here anymore," I replied heatedly. "We've been here for a month and we haven't figured out much and we haven't done anything either. All you guys do is sit around watching TV, or run tests, or lift weights, or fight each other while I have nothing to do. I'm starting to go crazy; I need cheeseburgers and fries, not the crappy food that we always get here."

"Well _excuse us_ for the food not being up to what princess is used to." Koto replied sarcastically.

"Enough!" Cody snapped back at him before turning to me again. "Well, we haven't heard from Halo Syndicate in a while," he muttered to himself. "I guess we can go out, as long as we're extra careful." He paused. "So that means that we're going to have to try and get our guardians to blend in."

"Good luck with that." Koto turned on his heels and walked away.

* * *

"_What else have you found, Christian?" Reed Jackson questioned as he sat down next to Nathan Reeves. He looked up as two women passed and he lowered his voice, leaning forward. "Is it just us?"_

"_Yes, it is just us," Christian replied and brushed his brown hair out his eyes. "I have gone around and asked people, without telling them everything exactly, what we have found, and no one else has even given a hint that they knew about it too."_

"_People that can control elements," Nathan let out a breath as he leaned back in his seat. He laughed incredulously. "Sounds like it came out of a Sci-Fi movie."_

"_I was thinking the same thing," Reed stated as she shook his head, leaning back as well. He sat still for a second and then crossed his legs. "There has to be a reason that we found out about this," he looked at Christian and then over at Nathan. "The three of us, there has to be a reason why us three college guys are the only ones that found out about this."_

"_I was wondering that exact same thing," Christian commented as Nathan opened his mouth to say something. He closed it when Christian continued. "From some of the information that I had found, elementals had awakened from finding out that others were elementals, so, maybe that has something to do with us."_

"_So what you're saying is that we're possible elementals?" Nathan questioned as he raised an eyebrow skeptically._

"_I'm not saying that exactly," Christian replied, shaking his head. "I'm saying that it be why we're the ones that found out about it."_

"_Either way, it's something that we have to research more," Reed interjected, lowering his voice even further. "I think that we should continue our studies on this on our own and meet up again, same place, same time, next week."_

"_Agreed." Nathan nodded._

_

* * *

_**A/N: Sorry guys, I know that I said that you would see more of Bailey's powers in this chapter, but then I had this idea and its now been moved to the next chapter. So I hope that you guys liked the glimpse of the past in this chapter as well as being excited for the next one. I'll update again soon.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riley**


	25. Trouble at the mall PART 1

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

* * *

"You're completely crazy if you're thinking about ruining our cover just to go to the _mall_." Zack stated as he stared at me, his eyebrows raised. "I mean, that's probably the worst way that we could ever get caught and get killed." He grabbed a towel off of the side of the weight lifting machine that he was working at and wiped sweat off of his neck as he stood up and went to another machine.

"But we need clothes," Rhuben reasoned with him as she sat on the edge of the table, her arms crossed over her chest. "I mean, we can't just wear the stuff that WingzCorp gave us for the rest of our life. Besides," she brushed her head behind her ears and ran a hand over her face wearily. "We also need to get better food, and you're forgetting that Sydney is only nine and he needs to get out and act like a normal kid every now and then."

"Which reminds me that you guys still haven't really told us what you have been doing for the past couple of years, besides tracking down Halo Syndicate and everything." Zack replied as he stood walking and put the towel around his shoulders, giving Rhuben a pointed look.

I stood behind Rhuben like I usually did, slightly apart from the group and feeling left out. I know that they were just trying to make sure that I wouldn't get hurt since apparently I was a target, but I would at least like to think that I was their friend.

Not a charity case.

"And you probably won't know." Rhuben replied simply.

Case closed.

"Look, Zack," I spoke up again and Zack turned my way, his eyebrows still raised in question, not sure if it was good idea or not. I tried not to get distracted by the fact that he was shirtless, but I had to admit that it was hard. I wasn't made of stone and growing up in Kettlecorn had made me notice boys that much faster. I could feel my face heating up and I quickly busied myself with brushing my hair behind my ears before forcing myself to look into his eyes. "We've all been on edge for a while, and I know that you're not even close to even becoming friends with WingzCorp but we just need a day to ourselves and I think that the mall is the best place to go." I continued to speak when Zack looked like he was going to disagree with me. "_And_ I don't think that they would attack with so many innocent people around."

"Do you _not_ remember when you were almost kidnapped?" Zack snorted in reply as he crossed his arms over his chest. "They surely didn't want to spare their lives then." He rolled his eyes and then looked serious again. "Why are you asking me for _my_ permission? I'm not going to be the only one that stops you."

"Yes, but you're the one that's somewhat the leader of this thing that we have going on," Rhuben spoke up again. "So we're always going to go to you whenever it's something that we need to figure out."

"Great," Zack smiled a little. "More responsibility." It was a joke, but all it did was seem to cause the seriousness of their situation to be realized that much more. "I think you're both crazy, but you've brought up some good points as well." He sighed again. "Alright, I don't think this is a good idea, but you won't know unless we take a risk." He shrugged. "What could go wrong?"

"A lot." I replied with a nod.

"You got that right." Rhuben agreed.

* * *

_Nathan Reeves yawned loudly as he rubbed his eyes, getting his stuff together for class that morning. It was tedious, he knew everything that was happening in each of his classes and it bored him. But there weren't any more classes that held his attention or challenged him a little so he was stuck. But he was thankful that his classes that day were mostly science ones as science has always interested him. His mother had always said that if he didn't end up being a scientist later in life that it was the sign of the apocalypse._

_Nathan sighed as he looked at his watch, he still had time before his class started, he could get a head start on his next project._

_Grabbing his laptop, he moved and sat back on his bed, waiting as the computer powered up. It was times like these, in the early morning and late at night that he wished he had decided to get a double room with a roommate instead of s ingle. But in the end, he liked his privacy, so he could deal with the loneliness after away. Just the same, he made a mental note to call his parents later._

_As he pulled up the internet, instead of using a simple Google search like normal people did, Nathan decided to go a different way through the internet. He was an excellent hacker, and new a lot of how computers worked and how people would use different codes and storage files to keep their documents a secret. With the project he was doing for science, he would have to get a lot of information from the government, and instead of trying to sweet-talk his way into it, he decided to just get the information himself. As he was scrolling through the files, he noticed an odd one that had a lot of data in it, due to the size of the document._

_As he pulled it open, his heart started to beat faster. Nathan knew ways that computers could hack into other computers without being detected, but this was the government that he was dealing with and they had scientists and computer experts that were trained to deal with this sort of thing. As he pulled open the document numerous news reports; images of newspaper clippings, news station videos, charts, graphs filled up the screen and they all had the same topic. 'Super humans' that were in Japan. Nathan's eyes widened as he continued to read._

_The 'super humans', from what people had reported, were able to control elements like fire, water and were being witnessed. Some of them were using the power to help other innocent people who were in trouble, and others were using it to rob banks and wreak havoc. Each document that Nathan looked at had to do with the super humans and more and more appeared as Nathan continued to look through it._

_By the time he had finished looking through them, Nathan had missed his first class and he had a name for them._

_Elementals._

_

* * *

_"Dricer, stop messing with your clothes!" Crystal hissed as she slapped her guardian's hand away from his shirt. "People are starting to stare!" She rubbed her neck as they stood in the front of the mall, lots of people of all ages walking by them. Adults, teenagers, kids, even families, it seemed to be a day where everybody was out at the mall.

"But these clothes feel funny," Dricer replied, pouting a little. "I mean, it's not like the ones that I usually wear." He dropped his arms to the side as he brushed his brown hair out of his face. "Why do humans wear weird clothes anyway? We'd be much better off being naked."

"Yeah, I'm sure that wouldn't go over well," I replied, laughing a little as I brushed my hair behind my ears. I breathed in deeply, taking in the smells of the mall, before turning around to look at everything. "I haven't been to a mall this big before."

"Wow," Max spoke up, raising her eyebrows, Canis standing beside her, looking uncomfortable as well. "You haven't really gotten out of Popcorn have you?"

"Kettlecorn." I corrected patiently.

"Whatever." She shrugged.

Tapeworm grabbed her arm and turned her around and the two talked quietly for a seconds in hushed tones. Max frowned and then sighed, rolling her eyes as she nodded, and Tapeworm smiled and kissed her forehead. I didn't know what they were talking about, but I had a guess. We had been getting along lately, and I'm sure that they all trust me, but I felt that Riley, Rhuben, Max, and Crystal were still waiting for me to screw up. That pressure was really hard and I felt that I was walking on egg-shells when I was around them, but I knew that I would be able to prove to them that I was on their side and that I wasn't going to betray them.

_Easier said than done._

'_Thanks voice_' I replied sarcastically. The voice was staring to annoy me, it never responded when I wanted it to, and all it did was make things that much more confusing and annoying.

"What's up with you?" Patrick asked as he turned to Zack and Cody, who looked confused about something. "You don't have to freak out; Reihu, Kuroko, Tori, and Tora are all keeping guard outside of the mall." He reminded them.

Earlier, before we left, Zack and Cody had gotten everyone, us and Wingz Corp, together to say that we would have a truce. As long as Halo Syndicate was out there, we wouldn't attack each other. Surprisingly Kagenui, who seemed to be the leader of all of WingzCorp at the time, had agreed and now we're in a truce. No matter where we go, some of WingzCorp was going to come along to be our bodyguards of some sort. That caused us to become a little less paranoid, but it didn't seem to put their guardians at ease.

For extra protection, everyone had their guardians to come out and they disguised them the best they could, but from what I could tell, the guardians weren't very happy to have to wear all of the clothes to make them look more human. They were constantly fidgeting and pulling at their clothes.

"Can we hurry this up so we can get out of here, please?" Blaze grumbled as he rubbed his arms. "There are too many people around here, its making me nervous."

"Yeah, well, I can feel that and it's making my nerves get even more nervous." Zack snapped back. Blaze glared at him out of the corner of his eyes.

"Well your nervousness from my nervousness is making me-"

"Don't start." Cody and Phantom interjected in unison.

I giggled at the exchange, the guardians were their own people, yet they acted like their masters and mistresses as well. It was funny to watch. "What are you so nervous about?" I asked Cody as we started to walk through the mall. Sydney ran ahead to get to a candy store and I smiled as I watched him. "You and Zack are freaking out."

"I don't know, really," Cody replied, looking confused as he felt. "I just have a feeling that I've been to this mall before, it seems so familiar, but I don't think I have."

"That's odd." I remarked.

"Not really," Crystal stated from Cody's other side. I looked over at her and felt a surge of jealousy when I noticed how close they were walking to each other; their arms were almost brushing with each swing they took. "It's possible that you've been here before as malls and stores change their layout all the time." She paused and looked over her shoulder for a minute, frowning, before turning back to us. "But then again, we don't know where WingzCorp is right now and this mall has such a generic name we could be anywhere in the US."

"What's wrong, Crys?" Cody asked, grabbing her arm and stopping her as she looked over her shoulder again.

"What's up, Crystie-Chan?" Noah added, his eyes narrowing a fraction of an inch. "You seem to be on edge."

"I don't know. I just have the feeling that we're being followed." Crystal replied and turned to Dricer and DeathLiger. "I think I heard someone breathing behind us, do you guys?" DeathLiger and Dricer listened carefully as I watched the two of them.

When I had first seen them I noticed that they and DalFang looked the similar and Sydney explained to me that the three of them were brothers, Dricer was the youngest, DeathLiger was the oldest, and DalFang was the middle. But when I asked how it was that they didn't turn into the same animal, he couldn't give an answer and that was really surprising. I wasn't sure if he didn't know if he was just keeping it from me, but Sydney was really smart, probably even smarter than Cody, and I figured if anyone would know about it, it would be him.

"Yeah, I hear it too." DeathLiger replied after a moment. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Riley tighten her hands into fists as she slowly started to look around. "But I'm sure its noth-"

"Look out!" Dricer grabbed Crystal's arm and pulled her back, knocking Cody to the ground at the same time.

Before I could even move an inch, I felt the wind get knocked out of me as something hit my stomach. Then I was hit across the face before I felt a hand get twisted into my hair and I was dragged backwards a few feet before getting hit in the stomach again. I rolled onto my stomach as soon as I had stopped being dragged and got to my knees, coughing hard as I tried to get my breath back. I reached up and felt my eye and could tell that I already had a black eye.

"Bailey!"

I turned and looked at my friends and noticed that they seemed to be banging on something, but I couldn't see anything at all. Cody looked extremely panic stricken and seemed to be slamming his fists on some sort of a barrier. I got to my feet and hurried over to my friends, they were shouting at me and were frantically talking to each other as well as hitting the barrier. Their voices were muffled but I could still hear them. I reached out to try and touch them but let out a scream as I jerked my hand back. I looked down at my hand and my eyes widened when I saw that it was blistered, as if it had been burned.

"There's a barrier, she can't get through." I heard Sydney say as Crystal quickly whipped out a small laptop and started to type on it.

I looked around and watched as many people stopped and looked at us, I knew that they were seeing the same thing that I was thinking. It looked like we were talking to each other, but there was an invisible barrier that no one could cross. We were attracting too much attention.

"Don't pay attention to them, pay attention to me!" I whirled around and gasped when I saw a boy with dark black hair standing in front of me, his green eyes wild with anticipation. "Because you're going to die today."

* * *

**A/N: Oooh, the plot thickens. I hope that you guys enjoyed this chapter. I'll update again soon.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riley**


	26. Trouble at the mall PART 2

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

* * *

"We have to get her out of there!" Cody cried desperately. I barely heard his voice as I stared at the boy in front of me. He smirked as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Bailey Pickett," he stated and my eyes widened when I heard my name on his lips. I immediately felt a cold sweat move down my back. "It's nice to finally meet you, too bad that you have to die." I took a step back and then let out a scream of pain when I felt a burning sensation run through my body.

I fell to my knees, gasping for air, trying not to breathe in the smell of my signed hair. I knew that I had run into the barrier, the boy's smile had grown wider. I looked up at him as I tried to catch my breath, and he seemed to be normal, looking as if he was just having a pleasant conversation. But he still had cold, almost empty look in his eyes, as if he wasn't completely there. I saw out of the corner of my eye that my friends were talking quietly towards each other as we were gathering _a lot _of attention and were trying to figure out what to do.

So right then, I decided that it would probably be a good idea to keep him talking.

"What's your name?" I demanded.

"I'm Hayden." He replied and his grin grew wider, but his eyes still stayed dark. "It's nice to meet you." I thought that was odd, but continued to speak anyway.

"It's nice to meet you too," I replied as I stood up, carefully feeling the back of my head as I winced. My back, I was sure had massive burns on it, and as I was feeling the back of my head I could feel that some of my hair had burnt off and that I was probably going to need a haircut.

It was then I realized it.

This guy was serious; he really wanted to _kill me_.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to tap back into the feeling of when I first used my powers against Zhane. I was scared then, and I was downright terrified now, so I didn't understand how I couldn't use it. All of a sudden I felt myself get punched across the face. I gasped in pain as I rolled across the ground and stopped on my side. I opened my eyes and gasped again when I didn't see Hayden anywhere.

But then, all of a sudden, he was in front of my face, but he didn't look normal. His eyes were bugging out of his head and they looked yellow, as his hands had turned into claws, and he had a long, scaly tail, whipping around behind him. He grinned, his sharp teeth glistening and raked his claws across my stomach. I let out a scream of pain, feeling blood start to drip down my stomach and kicked at him, pushing him back.

The familiar feeling came back and I smiled, knowing that the power was coming back to me again. I cupped my hands together and focused all of the energy that I had in my body and released it. I almost had to close my eyes against the bright light of the surge of energy that I gave off went shooting towards Hayden. As he was still stumbling back from the kick that I sent him, he was completely blindsided and was hit in the stomach by the blast of energy, sending him back into the barrier.

I got to my feet, ignoring the sting of the wounds in my stomach and clenched my hands into fists as Hayden got back to his feet, screeching with anger.

The fight was on now.

I leapt forward and punched Hayden in the stomach, ready to fight for my life.

* * *

"We don't have a choice," Max stated after a second, watching as Bailey backed up into the edge of the barrier and fell to her knees. "We have to break down this barrier."

"We can't do that!" Cody spat, sounding hysterical. "We can't let anyone know that we-"

"Do you _want _her to die?" Zack broke into the conversation. "Who cares if people find out that we're elementals? We'll just go back to WingzCorp and hide out there for a while." He threw his hands into the air before falling into a fighting stance. "It moves around for god's sake and I'm not going to wait here to watch her die!" He brought back a fist. "Fire Punch!" He cried and shoved his arm forward, a blast of fire hitting the barrier and dissipating instantly.

People around them started to scream and shove each other, running away. Others stood by and pulled their cell phones out of their pockets to catch what was going on.

"What?" Zack cried, his eyes growing wide.

Crystal quickly handed Sydney her laptop and turned back to the barrier. "Crystal Smash!" Crystal raised her hands into the air, as they hardened in ice and shoved them forward onto the barrier, but just like Zack's attack, it just dissipated, not leaving a scratch. "Shit!" She cried.

"Let's try all attacking together," Riley suggested as she moved over to Zack's side, nodding at him. "Maybe that will bring this thing down." She cracked her knuckles loudly.

"Wait a minute," Sydney cried, looking up from the laptop that Crystal hand given to him. "What happened to Reihu and the others?" His eyes grew wide as he looked concerned. "They're some of the strongest people that we've ever had to deal with; they wouldn't have just let these guys in here without a fight."

"But look at him now," Patrick stated, pointing to the barrier. Everyone turned to see what he was pointing at. "From the looks of it, I would say that his animal spirit is the chameleon." He looked confused. "But…it doesn't seem that he has an element."

"So?" Tapeworm asked, looking annoyed. He noticed a woman, who was holding onto a video camera, moving closer to them and then backed away a little bit. "We have more important things to deal with here."

"My point is that I haven't seen him use an element," Patrick rambled off quickly. He rubbed his hands together quickly and shot a blast of electricity at the barrier, and it went bouncing off and shot into the ceiling, causing dust and bits of the ceiling to crash to the ground around them. "So, maybe like Koto and the others, Core had fused them with some sort of animal."

"But Koto and them were the only ones that he fused." Rhuben reminded him.

"Ugh, you guys are taking too long!" Riley declared, being as impatient and impulsive as always. "We have to get her out of there before we have a death on our hands!" She winced when she saw Bailey's blast of energy hit Hayden and shoot him back into the barrier. "And I don't necessarily mean mine. If he gets knocked out, we can grab him and get some answers out of him. C'mon, Zack!"

"You got it!" Zack replied with a grin.

"No, wait!" Cody cried, trying to stop them.

"FIRESTORM!" They shouted in unison and their arms suddenly burst into flames. At the same time, they took a large step back before running forward, spinning in a circle, and shooting a rush of fire into the barrier. But just like it had done with Patrick's lightning attack, the fire went shooting off and crashed into the ceiling, which almost immediately burst into flames.

"_What did you do?" _Tapeworm and Max cried in unison, their eyes growing wide.

"_That's _why I didn't want you to do that!" Cody stated, glaring at his twin as he motioned to the ceiling. He shook his head. "You _really _have to _think_ before you go and start attacking something."

"Yeah, and I figured _you _would want to be the big man and try to save your little girlfriend that can't even take care of herself." Zack shot back, reaching out and shoving Cody on the shoulders. "Everywhere we turn she's always getting herself into some sort of trouble."

"Don't talk about her like that!" Cody shoved Zack back.

"Don't pretend it's not true!" Zack retorted, pushing his brother with more force. Cody then grabbed his brother around the neck and wrestled him to the ground.

Max and Tapeworm hurried over to Zack and Cody and tried to force them apart, to get them to stop fighting; being used to seeing them fight. Crystal turned her attention the fire that was still eating up the ceiling and shot shards of ice to it to suppress the flames.

"I'm going to go find out what happened to Reihu and the others." Rhuben declared and closed her eyes, slowly sinking through the floor

"Syd, I think it's time that we try your invention." Noah commented to his brother, holding out his hand. Sydney looked at him for a minute and then nodded before putting down Crystal's laptop and pulling a gun from his back pocket. He went to hand it to Patrick, but Noah grabbed it from him. "I think that if we're going to use your new Element Gun, its best if Patrick isn't the one to use it." He explained and then took a small step back. "Shield your eyes; we don't know if this is going to work." He warned and lifted the gun.

After taking a deep breath, he fired it.

There was a flash of blue light and the sound of something shattering.

* * *

Hayden and I were pretty much evenly matched. Every time I would throw a punch he would send one right back to me. When I would try to hit him with my energy blasts, he would suddenly disappear and hit me with his tail, causing the whole chain to start over again.

But I wasn't going to back down; I could feel the power coursing through my veins and knew that I could defeat this guy if I tried hard enough. Each time I would hit him though, Hayden seemed to get angrier and angrier and his attacks would come faster and faster.

"Enough!" He shouted as he appeared at my side and spun in a quick circle, sending his tail into my stomach. "It's time to end this!" He held his hands out, green electricity crackling in the air.

I backed up as far as I could, trying to figure out what to do. '_You're smart Bailey_' I reassured myself. '_You can beat Cody in any chess match or word puzzle, you can defeat this guy._'

All of a sudden there was a crashing sound, like shattering glass, and I looked around to see Noah standing behind me, lowering his arms a gun in his hands. I turned back to Hayden, but he was gone and I felt all of the energy drain out of me. I knew that he was gone; I couldn't actually feel his presence around me anymore.

I didn't feel threatened.

"Guys, she's fine!" I heard Max shout and turned to see Zack and Cody fighting on the ground. I noticed the smell of smoke and looked up to see Crystal putting out the last bits of a fire. "He's gone! We have to get out of here _now_!" She kicked at them. "Stop fighting, goddammit!"

Her last words caught their attention, as well as the sound of people talking rapidly on their cell phones and the sound of the camera shutters going off. Zack and Cody quickly got to their feet, shooting glares towards each other.

"C'mon!" Sydney called, grabbing the gun from Noah and turned, pushing through people get out of the mall, the rest of us following him.

As we ran out of the mall, there was one thing that I didn't think about until then. We were in a mall, a very crowded place, and we didn't think to see if there were any security cameras that had caught our faces.

* * *

**A/N: I'm sorry guys, this chapter and everything that was going to be explained was supposed to be much longer than this, but then I realized that it wouldn't make sense at this point in the story so I had to cut it a lot so I can save it for later. AND I'M SORRY IT'S SO SHORT, but it gave me good reason to show what people in the outside world see how elementals act.**

**I also wanted to show how with a bit of frustration and confusion how the elementals could fall into chaos and stop working together, thus making everything worse. But I **_**do**_** promise that the next one will be much longer than this one. I swear, and it will be up soon.**

**There are some things I don't like about this chapter, I'm probably going to go back and edit it later.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riley**


	27. A watery grave

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

* * *

"Guys, we have to get out of here!" Max stated as soon as we all arrived outside. "Like, _now_, because all of these people have probably called the police and we don't need to-"

"I think the security cameras caught us!" I interrupted, bringing all of the attention onto me. "When we were leaving, it suddenly occurred to me that even though not many people may have seen what was happening, the security cameras all over the mall could have been watching us." I shook my head grimly as the weight of my words landed on everyone; I could see it in the rapid changes of their faces. "They could have gotten out faces."

"So if we want to get out of here, we're going to have to do it in a way that we don't bring attention to ourselves." Crystal stated and then looked annoyed as she snorted. "Which is a feat in itself, because we can't go _anywhere_ without a bit of attention.

"It was just as I thought," Rhuben's voice suddenly came through Tapeworm's element watch. "The chameleon dude-"

"Hayden." I interrupted.

"Hayden," Rhuben repeated in a way that I had to guess she was rolling her eyes. "Had used his Chameleon powers of blending into his surroundings to knock out Reihu and the others so he was able to get to Bailey. We're back at WingzCorp now."

"Good, stay there." Zack stated as he brought his watch up to his mouth to reply to her. "We're going to try and find out way back without bringing too much attention." He gave a funny looked as he twisted his mouth to the side. "I'm guessing we're going to have to take public transportation to blend in."

"Then no matter what happens our guardians should stay inside us," Noah agreed with a short nod. "We don't want our faces plastered around anymore than they already are, and if our guardians come out, then...well…we might as well be throwing ourselves into a psyche ward or allow ourselves to be tested on like lab rats."

'_But maybe things would be easier if we went and just told the world that there are elementals. That way we'd be able to go out in public without the danger of being caught or having to worry about our guardians being uncomfortable._' I thought to myself as I studied everyone's faces. '_Life would probably be easier that way._' But I knew that I shouldn't voice my opinion, I'd probably just be alienated for the idea and right now, I needed their help, since Zhane and the others were after me.

"So, how are we going to get out of here?" Sydney asked quietly. I looked down at him and felt that my heart was breaking a little bit. It was still weird to see that he was 9 and having to deal with so much.

I looked up and turned around when I heard a car roar to life. "Simple," Riley stated as she jumped out from behind the steering wheel of a car and jingled a pair of car keys. "We take public transportation," she jerked her thumb over her shoulder to the van that she was standing beside. "But a bit more private than a bus."

"You can't _steal_ a car!" Cody screeched, his eyes growing wide. "Don't you realize that this is against-"

"Cody, would you rather die or live?" Crystal interrupted, looking at him sharply. Cody looked over at her and an odd expression slid over his face as his eyes softened. I wasn't sure what it was, but it didn't make me feel comfortable. "Now that we're _this_ close," she held her thumb and index finger a few inches apart from each other. "To having our secret exposed to the world, I think our ideas on ethics have been thrown out the window." She placed her hands on her hips. "We're in the middle of the war, and sometimes we're going to have to do something that we would never do if we were normal."

"Yeah, you're right." Cody agreed after a minute of silence, nodding slowly. "I guess we don't really have a choice." He then turned to Riley and looked at her skeptically. "Do you know how to drive?"

"I've been driving for over a year," Riley replied and got back into the driver's seat, pulling the door shut and unlocking the rest of the car doors.

"Yeah, but if I were you, I'd hold onto the seat very tightly," Patrick stage whispered to me as we climbed into the van. "Riley has massive road rage."

"No, I _don't_." Riley replied in a tone that showed that she had heard that statement many times before. We all climbed into the van and closed the doors as Riley started the car and pulled out of the parking lot of the mall, having to stop short a few times as people were running back and forth in front of her. "Geez, these people are stupid." She muttered under her breath as she had to brake again.

She had braked so fast that I almost hit my head against the seat in front of me. "Uh, guys?" I heard Tapeworm's voice from the back of the van. "Look!"

I twisted around in my seat and gasped loudly when I saw that the top of the mall was engulfed in flames as well as smoke was billowing into the sky. My eyes widened when I saw it and I felt my body go numb. It was no wonder they didn't want anyone to be able to see what they were able to do as elementals. It could cause a lot of chaos and destruction, no matter how hard they tried to keep it from happening.

"Damn," Zack muttered as he turned in his seat, he was riding shotgun, and looked at it himself. "I didn't mean for that to happen." I looked over at him and felt for him. He looked like he really did have a lot of remorse for what happened.

But I shouldn't have been surprised.

I never really knew Zack and Cody before I figured out everything about elementals, now that I was getting to know them and the others, it showed me that there was more to people and the world than meets the eye. And it's something that I shouldn't take lightly.

"We don't mean for anything like that to happen," Noah replied reasonably. "It was an accident, don't worry about it. The firemen will do the best that they can." He turned back and faced forward again. "The best that we can do is prayed that no one has gotten hurt and get back to WingzCorp as fast as we can."

"Do you know how to get back to WingzCorp?" Max asked as she continued to look out the back window of the van as Riley turned out of the parking lot and onto the freeway, tightly holding onto the steering wheel.

"We can basically sense where it is, so we we're just going to have to follow that trail for a while." Patrick replied.

"Then after that, Rhuben should be able to pin point where we are and come get us." Crystal added. "So we're going to have to ditch the car and hitch-hike later." She added as an afterthought. "Sticking to the back woods and stuff." She paused.

"Only problem is, we don't know where we are." Sydney stated, obviously voicing the last of her thoughts as she had just nodded.

"That's never stopped us before," Riley commented lazily as she continued to face forward, but taking the chance to briefly look back at the rest of us to give a fleeting smile. "We'll figure out where we are and where we're going."

'_If you're sure_' I replied in my head. I didn't want to risk making her mad, I've heard from Max and Cody that she could have a bad temper and she already didn't like me, so I didn't want to make it worse. '_Sometimes people can use confidence to hide the doubt that they're really feeling. I hope this isn't one of the cases._'

* * *

"This place looks so familiar." Cody muttered.

Hearing his voice, I lifted my head slowly, feeling a pinch in my neck, coming out from a light sleep. I looked around and noticed that we were driving over a large bridge, water lapping calmly beneath us. I sat up and stretched and looked around. Most of the others were still asleep, but Riley, Cody, Zack, and Crystal were still awake.

Cody turned to me with a smile when he realized that I had woken up. "Did you sleep well, Bailey?"

I blushed and nodded quietly before rubbing me eyes. "You said this place looks familiar, where do you-"

There was a cracking sound. It seemed to come from a long ways away, but that wasn't possible. It had to have from the engine. The car shuddered and lurched to one side, immediately waking everyone else up. Cody let out a cry, his eyes growing wide. There was nothing anyone could do, it was as if a giant hand had grabbed the back of the van and had swung it around like a toy. Riley tried to regain control of the car, I could see her frantically turning the steering wheel in the opposite direction, but it was no use.

We were spinning out of control.

Then the next thing I knew, I heard Zack's scream and I felt the sensation of falling.

It was then I knew that the van had come off of the bride and was plunging down towards the water.

Everyone's screams, including my own, filled the air seconds before we hit the water. The impact was really hard; it whipped us back and forth at the same time. I let out a cry of pain as I felt my forehead smash into the seat in front of me. My breath escaped me and my vision exploded into bright colors. The car didn't even float for a second; it just went straight down into the water. It was dark, but it was still sunny out, enough so that we could still see each other. I could feel the pressure building up in my ears and a second later there was a soft thud and shudder.

We had hit the bottom of the water.

We weren't moving anymore. But that's was and wasn't a good thought. How far had we even come anyway? How long did we even have before we ran out of air?

I shook my head frantically. '_Don't think that Bailey, we're going to get out of here._'

"The water's coming in!" Patrick cried as water started to lap at our feet. It was colder than I thought, I quickly pulled my feet up onto the seat, but it wouldn't make a difference. I was wearing sandals, so my feet were already starting to go numb.

"Is everyone ok?" Zack asked, turning in his seat to look at everyone.

"Yeah, we're all fine." Tapeworm replied groggily. I turned around saw that he had a cut on his forehead; he must have hit his head as well.

"Riley," Zack turned to look at the girl next to him. "Are you ok?" He frowned when he didn't get an immediate reaction. "Riles?"

"I-I'm fine." She replied, slowly letting go of the steering wheel, letting out a deep breath, staring straight ahead. "I'm good."

"What happened?" Sydney asked as he looked around the car.

"I don't know," Cody shook his head. "There was a cracking sound and then we drove into the water."

"Well, what should we do?" Patrick asked. "We already said before that we want to create as little attention to ourselves as possible. Well, someone is bound to have seen us drive off and into the water, so we can't just blast a hole into the side of the car and just disappear."

"That will cause way too many questions and they, somehow, might bring it back to the mall." I added, realizing what he was talking about. "We don't really have many choices here."

Everyone fell silent, but it wasn't quiet at all. I was aware of all of the noises around us; the engine was clanking as it cooled, and there were strange, ghostlike echoes coming from the lake itself. The van was groaning as it fought against the pressure outside. And the scariest thing, a steady stream of water that continued to rise in the car. It was already over my knees.

All of a sudden, I heard a fumbling sound from beside me and then Cody spoke again. "The doors locked."

"Don't open it!" Sydney cried. "That will cause the car to fill faster and we need all the air that we can get.

"So what are we going to do?" I repeated the earlier question.

Zack turned back around and searched the glove compartment for something that they could use. But as soon as he opened it, more water had poured out. The water was continually rising and it had now gone over the edges of our seats.

We surely didn't have a lot of time left.

We were in a tomb.

And we were all alone.

"What happened to the car?" Max asked, trying to change the subject again, so we wouldn't panic. I could tell from the tone of her voice, but we were all scared, so there was no way to try and fight it.

"I don't know," Riley replied as she shook her head, still staring straight ahead. "Everything was fine and then the engine like, blew up. I don't know what could have happened." She sounded frustrated. "I'm not a mechanic."

"Rhu-Rhu is," Sydney replied quietly and then his eyes widened. "She doesn't know what happened to us," he started to become frantic as he tried to talk to his sister. "And she's not answering! Something's interrupting the frequency of the element watches."

"It has to be Zhane that did this." Cody stated, rubbing his forehead. "We don't know what he's capable of, but he must be able to sense where Bailey is if he keeps finding us." He growled. "So he must have done this to get rid of her faster, not caring if the rest of us were with her."

"We're going to have to open a window." Zack stated suddenly.

"Why?" I asked, turning my attention back to him.

"That's the reason why the doors won't open," He replied. "We have to make the pressure inside the car the same as the pressure outside."

"How do you know that?" Cody asked his brother skeptically.

Despite our circumstance, Zack managed to flash Cody a smile. "If you watch as many action movies as I do, you manage to learn a thing or two."

"But then we'll drown." Riley stated quietly.

"No," Cody shook his head. "We didn't sink that far. I don't think we can be more than sixty feet down."

"Sixty feet is a lot," Tapeworm reminded his friend. "Especially when you have to hold your breath that long, I'm not sure if I can."

But looking over at Zack, Cody knew that he had made up his mind. Cody turned back to his friends, a look of determination on his face. He took a breath. There couldn't have been much air left in the car. The water was continuously rising, the space between the water and the ceiling was getting smaller and Sydney was already sitting on top of a seat, his head tilted back towards the ceiling, just in case.

I looked around and narrowed my eyes when I saw the air vents. They were wrong, we wouldn't drown. Once the water reached the level of the air vents it would stop, but we would be sitting in a bubble of air that would disappear quickly as we breathed out carbon dioxide.

We would suffocate.

"We have to get out of the car and swim for the surface," Cody said. "It's the only way."

"But you and Sydney will be the only ones that can breathe in the water, and it will be hard for you two to use your powers to give us air bubbles as well as trying to swim to the surface at the same time." Zack reminded his brother.

"We don't have a choice." Cody replied.

"So how do we open the window?" Crystal questioned.

The windows were electrically operated and if the battery still had power it wouldn't matter, it wouldn't be enough to move the windows. The pressure outside was too great, and a manual handle would be useless. We were going to have to break the glass.

"Leave it to me," Noah commented and held out a hand. "Thorned Affection!" He called loudly. In a bright flash of silver light, a large black and silver hammer appeared in his hands. Crystal and Patrick moved out of his way as he turned towards the window.

"As soon as he breaks open the window," Cody shouted. "Take a deep breath. As soon as the water's over your head, you'll be able to open the door!" The rest of us nodded, too tired to say anything.

"Don't hold your breath!" Tapeworm contradicted a second later. "If you do that as you rise through different pressure levels, you could possible puncture your lungs." Cody thought for a second and realized that Tapeworm was right.

"Alright," Cody spoke up again. "Swim as fast as you can, but remember to hum as you go." He then turned and nodded towards Noah. "Do it!"

"Megaton Drive!" Noah called and swung his hammer, which was now glowing, forward, stopping five inches in front of the glass. The energy from the swing shot forward and immediately cracked all of the windows in the car.

I was almost torn out of my seat from the water that rushed in to the rill up the remaining spaces in the car. I looked up to see Cody and Sydney swing out through the windows, before turning back to grab the others and pulled them out as well. Fumbling, I turned and swam out the opposite window and pulled myself above the car. I quickly looked around and saw that everyone else had gotten out, Zack and Riley were right behind me, but they were moving slower than everyone else.

I turned and started to swim towards the surface, humming a song that my mom and dad used to sing to me as I went. As I continued to rise, my chest was starting to ache and my lungs were screaming for air. I knew that I wouldn't be able to resist trying to bring in a breath soon. It couldn't have taken less than a minute to get out of the car; I knew that I could hold my breath longer than that!

So what was happening now?

But the water was cold; it was all over, causing me to slow down. My humming started to falter before it stopped completely. No more air could come out of my mouth, with a sob of pure despair, I opened my mouth…

…And breathed air.

I didn't even notice that I had broken the surface; all I knew was that I was there. I looked around and saw that everyone else had made it too and was already on the bank of the water. Next to me, Zack's head broke the surface, Riley's breaking a second after, and she was coughing hard and gasping for air.

"What happened?" I asked, turning towards the two of them, treading water.

"She got tangled up in the seat belt." Zack replied, coughing a little himself. His eyes widened. "Cody!" he called frantically.

"Over here, Zack!" Cody called back from the shore, waving an arm frantically. The terrified look on his face had calmed down to one of relief when he spotted his brother "We're all ok, come in!"

"Are you good to swim?" Zack asked, turning to Riley. She nodded back. "Come on, then."

The three of us swam into shore and clambered out, giving each other hugs, while turning to look back from where we came from. If we hadn't figured out what to do, we could have…

I shook my head. '_I really need to stop thinking like that_.' I told myself.

"Bailey," Cody turned to me and gave me a tight hug. I threw my arms around his neck and gave him a hug back, shaking from the cold and from fear. "Are you ok? You didn't swallow any water did you?"

"No, I'm fine." I replied and gave him a reassuring smile, my teeth chattering. "I'm fine."

"What happened, Ri-Ri?" Sydney asked as he looked around for a second before nodding at Max, who caused a gust of wind to blow, starting to dry their clothes.

"You were right behind us, but then you disappeared." Patrick added from Crystal's side, where he was trying to rub warmth back into her hands.

"I got my foot stuck in my seat belt." Riley replied as she moved her hair out of her face and wrung it out, looking at Zack out of the corner of her eye. "Zack helped me out." She turned to look at him. "Thank you."

"No problem." Zack replied, looking a little surprised, but smiled. We all moved together in a tight circle as we tried to get warm and dry. Zack made a startled sound and his eyes widened. "Wait, I know where we are." Zack stated as he slowly turned around, wringing out the bottom of his shirt. "I can't believe I didn't notice it before." He shook his head. "I _thought _everything looked familiar."

"Well, where are we?" Crystal asked impatiently, moving her wet hair from her face.

"We just drove off the bridge by the Boston Harbor." Zack turned to look at his brother, Max, and Tapeworm. "We're back in Boston."

* * *

**A/N: Well here's the next chapter and now they're in Boston. What is waiting for them there? I can't tell you, you'll just have to wait. As for the part where the car went into the Boston Harbor, the idea of that and some of the lines/descriptions came from Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz, so all credit goes to him. I hope you guys enjoyed this.**

**Cheers,**

**Riley**


	28. Confrontation

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Reihu was mad when he woke up.

"I can't believe that I was beaten that easily!" He growled to himself as he punched his mattress. "I can't believe that I couldn't see that coming."

"He was a chameleon; there was no way that you could see it coming." Rhuben commented as she walked into his room, her arms crossed over her chest. She sat down on the end of his bed. "But I need some more information on what happened."

"Why do you care?" Reihu asked slowly, ignoring her last statement.

"No one hurts a DarkLion and gets away with it." Rhuben replied calmly. Reihu looked at her as if she were crazy and then slowly shook his head. "What? No 'once a DarkLion, always a DarkLion shit'?" she asked, her tone suddenly changing to a cool one. "Don't even try that with me, we both know that you guys all understood why we left, you were all upset that you couldn't leave yourself."

"That's not true," Reihu protested and rolled onto his side, before wincing and turning back onto his back.

"Hm," Rhuben cocked an eyebrow and then got up and went to the door. "Ruliyan!" she called a second later. She leaned against the doorframe as she waited for Ruliyan to go to the room.

"What?" he asked, looking a little disoriented. He was used to having Rhuben and all of her friends around, but still wasn't used to having to treat them like they were normal people and that they weren't chasing them around trying to kill them.

"I need you to tell me everything that you know about Core and Halo Syndicate," Rhuben stated as she closed the door to Reihu's room behind her. "There has to be some reason how they were able to find and attack Reihu, Koto, and Caos so easily that they didn't even see it coming." She shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest. "No, there has to be something else, because they can even tell whenever one of us is getting closer."

"I've already told you everything that I know about Core and Halo Syndicate," Ruliyan replied as he stood up straight, adopting the commanding voice that he always had, being the first in command of the DarkLions.

"I'm pretty sure that you didn't," Rhuben insisted coolly, not deterred by his insistence. "But it makes sense that you don't want to considering you like to keep information all to yourself."

"Would you knock it off?" Ruliyan's temper was starting to flare and Rhuben could tell because his normally brown eyes were starting to morph into amber ones with black slits, showing that his animalistic side was starting to take over.

"No," Rhuben replied calmly. "Technically, I'm not part of the DarkLions anymore, so you can't tell me what to do."

Ruliyan glared, but still seemed to deflate. "I don't know anything." He turned and started to walk away.

"_Yes_ you do," Rhuben moved back in front of him, gritting her teeth. This conversation was starting to get on her nerves. "I wasn't sure about it before, but I thought that you were hiding something. I had this little feeling that there was something that you weren't telling everyone when you were trying to explain Core's past with my dad and Uncle Christian and now I know for sure."

"It's not something that I can say."

"Bullshit."

"You don't understand-"

"What don't I understand?" Rhuben demanded, grabbing Ruliyan by the front of his shirt and holding a hand above her head. She was beyond irritated, all of this side-stepping around what he wanted to say was getting on her nerves. She closed her hand into a fist and it started to glow black. "You can either go through the darkness, where you'll probably come back a quivering mess." She smirked. "Trust me, I've been there and it's probably never going to go away."

"Let me go and I'll tell you." Ruliyan replied calmly, yet coolly. He also didn't like to be told what to do. Rhuben regarded him for a minute and then let him go. "Go ahead."

"Core wasn't chasing after you all of these years to kill you," Ruliyan stated after a minute, obviously debating whether or not he should admit what he knows. "He was making us chase after you guys so he could _protect_ you."

* * *

**A/N: I'm sorry that this was such a ridiculously short chapter compared to the last ones. But I was giving myself somewhat of a break before I really get back into the story. But I hope that the last line has you wanting more. Hahaha. Next chapter has looks into the past again.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riley**


	29. I knew what I had to do

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

* * *

"_What we need to do is find an elemental and run some tests." Nathan stated as he paced his dorm room. Christian and Reed were sitting down on the ground, a laptop was in Christian's lap, and Reed was writing something in a notebook. Nathan sat down on his bed and rubbed his chin. "But what I __really__ want to know is how was it that elementals were able to actually get here on earth."_

"_Maybe it's not that they 'got here'" Reed used air quote around the word. "Maybe they've been among us for a long time but we didn't know it."_

"_There's a thought," Christian agreed. "But here's a better one, what made it that us three were the ones to find out about it, roughly around the same time?"_

"_That's a good point," Nathan agreed, nodding slowly. "Let's go over this again," he got up and started to pace again. "Reed found out about elementals from a dream," Reed nodded in agreement. "I found out about elementals from the internet," Nathan scratched the back of his head. "And Christian found out about elementals from doing research on the supernatural." He shook his head. "But it still doesn't tell us how come we're the only ones that know about it."_

"_But we still don't know that for sure." Christian denied._

"_But it makes sense, no one else has ever mentioned it," Nathan stated as he stopped pacing again, his eyes wild with a strange light. "I mean, when we found out we told each other, so if someone else knew, they would tell someone, you can't keep something this big a secret."_

"_He's got a point there," Reed muttered as he suddenly turned his notebook on the side and started to draw something. "I've just had an idea," he stated and motioned for Nathan and Christian to gather around. "In my dream, there was this sort of ceremony that was going on and a human went into the water, and everything glowed, and when he came out of the water he was able to control it as well as the fact that he had turned into a sea lion. Then the human went over to someone that looked like an elder and they had a short conversation, all that I could hear was someone's name. Then the next thing I knew, the human" he paused. "Well the sea lion went back into the water, and my dream changed from there so I was standing by a bed of a little boy who was fast asleep. The sea lion came through the ceiling, turned back into a human and disappeared into the boy's body saying something about guardians."_

"_So?" Nathan asked as he waved a hand, urging him to continue._

"_So, maybe the human, sea lion thing, was a guardian to the boy."_

"_Kind of like a guardian angel?" Christian questioned as he raised his eyebrows._

"_Exactly," Reed nodded and started to scribble faster. "What is there is an elemental world hovering above ours that allows the people there to grow and become guardians to people on earth, who are destined to become what we now know as elementals."_

"_But if that were true, then why are more and more elementals appearing?" Nathan asked. "There seems to be some sort of a method to elementals being made, so how come there are more and more coming up so fast?"_

_There was a bit of silence._

"_Maybe the elemental world is falling out of balance, maybe, at first, there weren't supposed to be elements in our world. Maybe the elemental world is collapsing and it's overflowed into our world." Reed replied and shook his head. "But I digress, there's so much that we don't understand about all of this."_

"_But that just means that we're going to have to figure it out," Christian stated with a nod. "And I'm not going to stop until I do."_

"_Agreed." Nathan affirmed._

_Reed nodded._

* * *

"So, are we going to go visit your mom and dad?" I asked Zack and Cody, wanting to break the silence as we aimlessly walked around the city. "Or at least go to the Tipton hotel or something?" I frowned when I still didn't get a reply. "We need a place to stay-"

"We already _have_ a place to stay." Max reminded me with a sharp look. "Even though it kind of gives us the creeps, we have a place to stay and we're staying there!"

"But-"

I stopped as there was a rush of wind and Rhuben suddenly appeared by my side, gasping for air as she held onto her knees. I looked around to see if anyone had noticed, but people continued to mill by on the streets. "Guys," she gasped, getting everyone's attention. She stopped speaking when she noticed that Sydney was still slightly wet. "What happened?" Crystal quickly explained what had happened and Rhuben's eyebrows rose as she took it all in. "Creepy," she commented and raised and lowered a shoulder as Sydney wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his face into her stomach. "We all know it's Halo Syndicate, but what do you think that we should do about it?"

"Right now," Cody sighed and shook his head. "There's nothing that we _can_ do." He sounded subdued as he said it. He looked over at Zack, who was biting his thumbnail, looking distracted. "We're trying to figure out whether or not we should find our mom and dad or Julius and Maddie or-"

"Wait," Tapeworm interrupted Cody and turned to Rhuben. "What were you just about to say? It sounded serious."

"I was just talking to Ruliyan," Rhuben stated, scratching her forehead. "Apparently, this whole time that Core has been sending off all of those people to chase us for years…" she shook her head, looking dumbfounded and serious at the same time. "It wasn't because Core was trying to kill us…it was because he was trying to protect us."

"WHAT?" Patrick and Noah shouted in unison.

"Are you sure you heard that right?" Max demanded. "Core has been trying to _protect _you?" She snorted. "That's ridiculous!"

"I know that it sounds weird, but what if it has some sort of truth to it?" Rhuben raised and lowered one shoulder. "I don't know," she sounded confused. "That's all that Ruliyan could tell me, at this point, I don't know if I believe anything that anybody tells me anymore."

"Well," I spoke up, clearing my throat. "We need to make a decision here, what are we going to do? If our faces have been caught by the security tapes in that mall, we can't risk being on the streets right now."

"I vote that we go find Julius and Maddie," Zack finally spoke up. Cody looked at his brother with furrowed eyebrows and Riley raised her own.

"You don't need to do us any favors," she commented coolly. "We should go see your mom and ad first, I'm sure that Moseby has called them to tell them that you're not on the boat anymore." Her face softened a little. "Plus you haven't seen your mom and dad for a long time, I'm sure that you're going to want to see them."

"But then we're going to have to give them some sort of an explanation as to why we left," Zack replied, still biting his thumb, looking troubled. This was the first time that I had ever seen him look like he was being torn. "And I don't want to have to deal with that right now, besides, Julius and Maddie may know some things that we don't and if not, we can tell them about Halo Syndicate. Plus, they might be able to help us make a decision about what we should do." He held up his hand as Patrick then started to try and dissuade him. "I'm not going to change my mind about this," he stated. "We're going to go see Julius and Maddie and that's that."

"Zack are you ok?" Cody asked as he reached out a hand and placed it on his brother's forehead. "You don't seem to be acting like yourself."

"Well excuse me if I just want all of this to end," Zack replied, shaking his head. "And right now the only way that I can see that happening is if we go and talk to some other elementals and see what they think we should do." He noticed the look on Cody's face. "Dude, I promise that we're going to go see mom and dad, but I'd like to be able to get something done first."

"I understand that you're the 'leader' of us, but I don't think-"

"Cody," Sydney interrupted sharply, immediately grabbing his friend's attention. "We don't have time to argue about this, the more time that we spend trying to figure out what to do, the more time that it takes for Halo Syndicate to figure out how to kill Bailey once and for all." He tried to stay as calm as possible. "UMass is this way," he pointed and we followed him down the sidewalk.

"Trust me, we know about Halo Syndicate too." Maddie Fitzpatrick stated as she moved her blonde hair out of her face as she walked over to the window in her dorm room and closed it, making sure that no one could hear them. "We've been on edge ever since we found out about them." She moved back across the room and sat down on her couch next to Julius Jackson, her boyfriend and the Jacksons' oldest brother.

"We found out about them when they attacked us once in the quad," Julius's blue eyes darted around the group of teenagers. "I was able to stop time so no one was able to see us, but they're ruthless."

"They attacked you too?" Cody let out a frustrated groan and rubbed his hands through his hair. "It seems that we can't go anywhere without our loved ones being targets."

"I don't think it's our loved ones actually," Julius commented as he rubbed his forehead. "I think they're attacking all elementals." He got up and started to pace. "It makes sense if you think about it, they attacked the ship because you guys were there, and they attacked in Boston because Max, Tapeworm, Maddie, and I are here, no matter where an elemental is, I'm sure they're all being attacked." He got up and grabbed Maddie's laptop off of a desk. "Mind if I borrow this, babe?" he questioned.

"No, not at all." Maddie replied as she shook her head.

I felt Zack shift on the couch beside me and I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. It didn't surprise me that he was annoyed about this, Cody had told me how much of a crush that Zack had on Maddie ever since he met her. I had even seen it firsthand, but I thought that he was ok with Julius dating her, as (from what Cody has told me) they have been for years. But I guess you don't get over your first love.

Julius typed rapidly on Maddie's laptop and brought up an e-mail before turning the computer around. "This is an e-mail that I got from Raf-Senpai recently," he stated. "And according to the pictures that he sent, this is just a little bit of the destruction that has come from Halo Syndicate attacking there." He started to shuttle through the pictures.

"Oh my god," Riley stated, growing more concerned as each second passed. "Are they all ok?"

"They're fine," Maddie reassured her. "And have been fighting off Halo Syndicate for weeks now."

"So that means that Halo Syndicate is bigger than we originally thought." Rhuben stated and let out a curse under her breath. "This just keeps getting harder and harder."

"I don't think it's going to get any easier, either." Tapeworm stated. He then turned to Rhuben. "Tell them everything that has happened with WingzCorp and then what Ruliyan just told you." He prompted. "They may be able to help us figure out what to do."

"The way I see it," Julius stated after letting the information sink in. "What you should do is go and see Uncle Christian and ask him about it, he may have wanted to keep all of this from you to keep your safe, but right now, it's a good place to start to figuring out how to take down Halo Syndicate once and for all."

"Do you know where my dad is?" Crystal asked, anxiously looking at the door as she started to bite the nails on her left hand.

"He's been in and out of the city a lot," Julius told his cousin. "Probably trying to keep Halo Syndicate off of his trail, but right now he should be back home." He nodded.

"That's a good place to start," Zack agreed and got to his feet. "Let's get going before nightfall," he looked at his watch. "We should be safer then." Blaze suddenly appeared on his shoulder and Zack turned to him. "Do you mind flying me over?"

"That depends," Blaze replied, sounding a little annoyed. "Did you eat recently, because the last time that you pigged out for lunch I was barely able to keep you in the sky."

"Haha." Zack rolled his eyes.

"Still making fun of your master like always, huh?" Julius smiled as he reached out and ran his fingers over Blaze's feathers. He looked down at Zack and noticed that the blonde boy was looking away from him. "Just stay careful alright?" He leaned closer. "And take care of my sister, even if she doesn't want you to." He whispered in Zack's ear and took a step back, looking away as Zack shot him a confused look.

"If you want to use your guardians to get out of here, now would be the time," Maddie stated as she looked out the window again. "Everyone seems to be in classes right now and the quad is totally empty." She turned back around. "Just go up to the roof and take off from there."

"You're not coming with us?" Noah asked, his eyes widening a little.

Julius shook his head. "Not right now," he replied. "But you guys are going to need our help later; we know that you can handle this right now. What we're going to do is try and get some more reinforcements."

"Like who?" Patrick sounded interested. "How do you know that they're going to come and try and help us?"

"Trust me, I know they will." Julius stated mysteriously. "You all better get going, we don't have much time left."

"He's right." Tapeworm agreed. "It's like Sydney said before, we don't have a lot of time left in this war and if we're going to do something, we should get together and make a plan now."

"So we're headed to Christian's house?" Max asked and then punched the air with her fist. "Let's get going then!"

"Why can't we just stay here?" Riley asked, turning to her brother with a small pout. "We won't be any trouble at all."

"Because it's too dangerous," Julius replied and reached out and placed a hand on her head, ruffling her hair. "And, Monster, we can't have that many people in our room and not get questions asked that we have to figure out a lie to."

"I guess you're right." She muttered.

"Stay safe." Julius hugged his brothers and sisters and his cousin, giving a confident smile.

"And keep us updated," Maddie added with a nod. "And we'll do the same for you guys, once we figure out anyway."

"Lead the way, Crys." Cody said to Crystal, nodding towards her as Phantom appeared on his shoulder. Crystal nodded back, her face void of any emotion.

'_That's weird_' I thought to myself as I watched her face. '_I figured she would be happy to go home and see her dad again.'_ I studied her face, but it still seemed apathetic. '_If we were going back to Kettlecorn then I would be ecstatic to see my mom and dad and sisters and grandma._' I tried to not let tears well up in my eyes.

What if I never saw them again?

'_Don't think like that Bailey, you're going to see them again and you're going to make sure that they're safe, by helping everyone else, you're helping yourself._' I reassured myself.

"Bailey, are you coming?" Noah asked from the doorway.

"Yeah," I nodded and went to follow them. I hesitated at the door. "How do you know that what you're doing is right?" I asked the two of them. "I mean, I'm not an elemental, but I feel like I'm not doing much to help them," I explained the best I could. "But I want to help as much as I can."

"Bailey, I can tell that you really want to help your friends" Maddie stated gently, giving a small smile. "And in this war that we're in, you're a bigger help then you think you are. Just remember that."

"I will." I nodded and hurried after my friends.

* * *

"Alright," Crystal cracked her knuckles as she got everyone's attention. "We're not going to just fly in one big group," she explained, shielding her face from the sun. "The way I see it, it would be better if we went in two large groups and met up at the house."

"Going the two different ways?" Cody asked as he climbed onto Phantom's back. Crystal nodded. "Then, we'll go the long way, and you can take the short way."

"And you're willing to do that to make it that I can see my dad?" Crystal sounded sarcastic and then gave a teasing smile. "Who said that chivalry was dead?"

"I didn't." Cody replied.

I frowned. "If you could stop flirting for like two seconds," I called, getting their attention. "We would be there by now." I ignored the smirks that Max, Riley, and Rhuben shot towards each other, as well as the chuckle that Zack did under his breath.

"Ok, Zack and Cody will be going in two different groups," Crystal took up the lead again. "Me, Max, Bailey, Riley, and Patrick will go with Zack," she shot me a look, looking me up and down, her upper lip curling in annoyance before turning back to the others. "And Rhuben, Noah, Sydney, and Tape will go with Cody. Any questions?"

Feeling bold, I raised my hand and waited for Crystal to turn to me. "Yeah, what was with that look that you just gave me?"

"What look?" she asked innocently.

"Oh you know what look I'm talking about," I shot back. "You gave me a look, and if you think that-"

"If we can have this girl fight sometime later," Max interrupted with a snap. "Seriously, who cares? It's not like we're going to live long enough to be able to _have _relationships since we're sitting ducks here!"

"Easy for you to say." Zack replied bitterly. "Considering you and Tape have been dating for how long?"

"WHO CARES?" Patrick shouted at the top of his lungs. "Really? Who does? Because _I _don't! What _I _care about is that my brother," he violently gestured towards Sydney. "Can finally live without having to think that he's going to be killed in the next few days. I want to be able to hang out with my twin without having to think that I'm going to be chased down for the rest of my life. And I want my sisters to finally, stop acting like my mom and to act like my sister. But none of that is going to happen if you all don't just _shut up_ and get your asses into the air so we can get to Uncle Christian's house!"

"Well said." Noah stated with a nod of appreciation.

"Now come on." Wings slid out of Patrick's back and he quickly took off up into the air. Noah did the same thing and soon was hovering a few feet below his brother.

"Master Patrick is right," ThunderTatsu agreed as all of the guardians suddenly appeared beside us. "You should put your own personal problems behind you until a time where you can address them, but right now, we need to focus on finding Christian and getting you guys safe."

"Can you do that for us?" Canis questioned, scratching the side of her head. "Because we would give our lives ran than seeing you all get killed."

"And if you continue to sit here and do nothing, you're just going to be stationary targets and easier to hit." Phantom agreed.

Wordlessly, Zack allowed wings to slide out from his back and he took off into the air as well, Cody, Max, and Sydney following close behind. The others got onto their guardians, I climbed onto Phantom's back, and we went after them.

Things were fine at first, but then we were attacked in mid air. Sydney was the first one to notice that we were being followed and it was just as well as they came flying out of nowhere and started attacking. Zhane was at the lead as well as Hayden being with him, and two of the girls that were in the forest were with him.

"You should know by now that trying to run away from me is futile!" Zhane called with menace as he flew after us. "I'm going to keep finding you, and I'm going to continue and try to kill that girl until she is dead!"

"Electrocution!" ThunderTatsu called and opened his mouth wide. A large bolt of electricity shot out of his mouth and towards Hayden.

"Icy Wind!" Dricer flew in a quick circle and a large gust of wind blew, along with throwing shards of ice around, hitting Zhane, Hayden, and the two girls. Dricer turned to Phantom and me as the other guardians started to come together in a large circle, a shield for the rest of us. "We'll hold them off; you guys get to Christian's house."

"Are you sure?" Riley asked as DalFang started to fly over to join the circle.

"We need to worry about you guys first, get out of here." DalFang replied forcefully.

"He's right, come on." Zack flew over to Riley and grabbed onto her arms, lifting her off of DalFang. "They're all going to come back safe and sound; we just really need to get to safety as soon as possible."

"Get her now!" Hayden cried.

I tilted my head back and looked up to see the two girls fly over to me and started to dive-bomb me and Phantom. Phantom brought his wings up and I grabbed onto him tightly as he took off straight up into the air. Phantom continued to fly in zigzags and in circles as the two girls continued to stay on our tail. I looked down and saw the other guardians aiming attacks at Zhane and Hayden as the others decided what to do, I knew that they were trying to figure out whether or not to attack just in case they missed and hit me or Phantom.

"Don't worry Bailey; I'll make sure that you get out of this unscathed." Phantom promised as he continued to turn this way and that.

"Thanks Phantom," I replied as I pulled my hair out of my face, the wind blowing it all around. "But I think that we should finish this sooner rather than later."

"That's really noble of you, but I don't think any of my attacks are going to stop them." Phantom replied, sounding defeated.

I knew what I had to do.

"Then maybe mine will." I replied and closed my eyes, concentrating on the energy. When I felt that the power had gotten so great, I released it in a large explosion. I heard a loud scream and looked up to see the two girls blasting back a few feet, having been hit by my blast. Their arms were smoking and it looked like, to my disgust that I had blown off their hands.

But that's not where the screaming was coming from.

I suddenly felt the sensation that I was falling and looked down to see that I was falling quickly towards the earth. Under me, I saw Phantom grow limp and in a flash of blue light, he turned back to his small form, falling faster.

"Phantom!" Cody cried and dive-bombed after him.

Sydney quickly flew down and grabbed onto my arm, slowing down my descent. I looked up and noticed that Zhane and the others were gone. "Everyone touch down!" Sydney commanded and we did as we were told, landing in a small wooded area. "Liberty park." He stated with a smirk. "How ironic."

"Phantom!"

"Is he ok?" Rhuben asked as we all hurried over to Cody, who was kneeling on the ground. "Cody, is he ok?"

"I don't know," Cody managed to reply, his cheeks were stained with tears and he was gasping for air. "He seems to be really hurt, I don't know if he's breathing." He started to shake his guardian gently. "Phantom, wake up, please."

Blazen turned into his human form and knelt down by Cody's side, looking down at his brother. Cody allowed him to take his brother into his hands and to look him over. "He's going to be fine, Cody." Blazen stated and handed Phantom back before turning into his small form and hopped into Cody's arms, moving his body close to his brother's. "He's just going to need a lot of rest; Bailey's attack must have really hurt him."

"Cody," I tired get his attention. "I'm really sorry about Phantom." I reached out to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder, but he jerked away from me.

"Don't touch him!" Cody cried and turned away from me, holding Phantom tightly in his arms. "Don't touch me." He looked heartbroken as he gently ran his hand over his guardian. "Do you think you can heal him?" he asked, turning to Sydney.

"You're just going to have to wait," Ursa replied, climbing up onto Tapeworm's shoulder. "He'll heal on his own. I'm sure that Christian can do some tests on him, to make sure that nothing is seriously wrong, when we get to his house."

"Yeah," Cody sighed heavily. "You're right."

"Cody, I'm so sorry-"

"I think you've done enough." Crystal interrupted.

"C'mon buddy," Zack stated and placed a hand on Cody's shoulder before gently helping him back to his feet. "We don't have to talk about it now, let's just get going."

I bent my head.

* * *

We had been walking for twenty minutes; the sun was starting to set, when Crystal perked up and started to run down the sidewalk as fast as she could go.

"Dad!" She called as she ran. "Daddy!"

Crystal raced towards a large white house and ran up the steps, banging her fists on the door. "Dad!" The rest of us were still coming up the sidewalk when the door was thrown open and a tall man with shaggy brown hair grabbed her into a hug, lifting her off of the ground. "I missed you, dad."

"I missed you too, honey," the man replied and set her back down on the ground before hugging her tightly again. "Is everyone here?" he asked, looking up and down the street.

"Yeah, everyone is here." Crystal nodded.

"Great, get inside, hurry." Christian Manning opened the door wide and we all went inside the house quickly. I turned back around as a small blonde boy came hurrying out of the kitchen and ran over to Crystal, immediately grabbing her into a hug. "Aaron knew that you were coming, he's been saying so for days."

"I just have a feeling." Aaron replied as he continued to hug Crystal.

"Aaron!" Sydney cried happily, the happiest that I had ever seen him for a while. He hurried over to the boy and gave him a hug as well. "How have you been?"

"I've been good," Aaron replied with a nod as he brushed his hair out his eyes. "I've been following Dad around for a while, trying not to stay in one place for too long." He looked around the room and I noticed that his eyes seemed really pale. "I've had a feeling, for days, that you guys were going to be coming soon, and I was right."

"He's blind." I turned my head and saw Riley looking at me. "Aaron's blind," she stated. "Has been ever since he was born, Crys used to take care of him and then Christian decided to adopt him."

"I'm Bailey Pickett." I stated with a short wave towards Christian and Aaron, who had turned to me. I felt a little stupid after doing so, since Aaron wasn't going to be able to see me.

"It's nice to meet you Bailey." Christian replied politely.

Patrick turned to Christian. "Uncle Christian, there's a lot that we have to talk to you about."

"I'm not surprised." Christian commented. "There's a lot that I have to tell you too." He let out a heavy sigh. "And I'm sure there are a lot of questions that you guys have as well."

"We have some more important things to deal with first," Crystal stated and nudged Cody's side.

"Christian, something happened to Phantom," Cody made sure to avoid my gaze. "Is he going to be ok?" He held his guardian out towards the man. Christian made a tsking sound as he took Phantom; Blazen then flew over and landed on Christian's shoulder, wanting to stay close to his brother. "Please? Can you help him?"

"I can," Christian replied as he raised his eyebrows. "But it's going to take some time, Crys, do you mind helping me?"

"Not at all, daddy." Crystal replied with a shake of her head.

"I'll help too." Sydney agreed.

"And me." Aaron nodded.

"Alright," Christian sighed. "Everyone else, there is plenty of food in the refrigerator and you know where the rooms are." He stated to the rest of us. "I've put up a shield, so anyone that has the means to try and track you, my house is now invisible to them. So you can relax for a while."

"Thanks Uncle Christian," Rhuben stated to him as she flopped down onto a couch. Patrick and Noah sat down next to her, resting their heads on her shoulders, yawning a little. "We really needed this."

"No problem." Christian replied and disappeared downstairs along with Crystal, Cody, Sydney, and Aaron. "You all deserve it."

"I'm glad he said something about food." Tapeworm stated and went into the kitchen with Max following behind them. I sighed heavily and got up and followed them into the kitchen as well. "I wonder if he has any hotdogs." He was saying, his head in the refrigerator."

"If they knew that we were going to be on our way over, then I'm sure that Christian would have bought a lot of food, especially for you, Tape." Max laughed in reply as she sat down in one f the free chairs at the table. I sighed heavily and sat down across from her. "We know it's not your fault, Bailey, you just can't control your powers yet and we don't know how powerful it is."

"Then why do I feel so awful?" I asked glumly as I rested my arms on the table and put my chin on it.

"It was a mistake, Bailey, and you were just trying to protect the rest of us." Tapeworm added as he closed the refrigerator door, his arms laden with stuff for a sandwich. "It could have happened to the rest of us."

"But Cody's so mad, he-"

"He's just upset that his guardian," Max paused. "His best friend besides Zack is hurt. I mean, the rest of us would feel the same way, we've been with our guardians for years and like they would rather have themselves be killed then see us hurt, it's the same thing for us." She let out a short sigh, thinking. "When you have a guardian, he's like another part of your family, and we would do anything to make sure they're ok, so just give him some time."

"I just feel so bad about it." I continued to sulk. "If I knew how to control my powers, none of this would have happened."

"But it's also kind of our fault," Tapeworm said as he walked over to the table and sat down, a large sandwich in his hands. "We haven't really given you the chance to work on it. But now that we're here with an element scientist, you're going to be able to work on it and be able to end up controlling it. And don't worry about Cody, he'll come around."

"Thanks Tapeworm, I feel better." I replied and gave him a smile, before my eyes bugged out of my head, seeing the large sandwich in his hands.

Max dropped her arms to the table and stared at her boyfriend.

"What?" he asked with a mouthful and slowly moved the sandwich towards her. "Did you want some?"

* * *

"Can you believe that we're back here?" Zack asked as he walked into the bedroom that Riley, Crystal, and Rhuben shared, finding Riley on her bed, curled up in a ball. He stopped when he saw her eyes shoot open. "Sorry, I didn't wake you did I?"

"I wasn't even asleep." Riley replied as she placed the pillow against the headboard and sat up, leaning against it. "It's hard for me to get to sleep nowadays so I don't even know why I try." She crossed her arms over her chest. "What's up?" She narrowed her eyes and smirked when she noticed that Zack was standing by the end of the bed. "I don't bite," she stated and her smirk widened. "Much."

"I'm just afraid of what Christian would say if I did sit on the bed if he came in here." Zack replied slowly, as if he was thinking about it as he was talking. "I'm trying to figure out whether or not it's worth it having my arm broken."

"If anyone's going to break your arm it will probably be Patrick." Riley stated.

"Good point." Zack replied and then sat down on the end of the bed, running his finger over the bedspread. "I just wanted to ask you something." He finally stated after a minute. "Something that Blazen and I were talking about recently."

"Yeah, what's that?" Riley urged him to continue.

Zack decided to go ahead and ask the question before he lost his nerve. "Why is it that every time something good seems to be happening between you and me, you either change or just disappear on me?" He lifted his head and looked at Riley.

"I would try to deny what you're accusing me of," she stated after a second. "But I know that there's no point in doing that." She sighed and scratched the back of her neck. "Well, there's just been a lot going on lately, I guess."

"You mean with Halo Syndicate?" Zack asked, furrowing his eyebrows together. "Because if they did anything to you, I-"

"Slow down before you choke on some big words," Riley interrupted him. "No, I mean with me." She paused and then shrugged. "We got adopted again." She stated.

"Wow," Zack's eyes widened. "Really?" He gave a smile as Riley nodded. "That's cool, I never really liked Robert, and anyway, I always thought he was kind of creepy." He paused and looked apologetic. "You know, before I found out that he had been…uh…" he trailed off, not sure what to say.

"It's alright, you can say it." Riley urged him. "We're all coming to terms with it."

"Its fine," Zack shook his head. "So what happened to him?"

"He's in jail, at the least for 36 years," Riley stated and smiled a little. "We finally got rid of _that_ pain in our asses and now we have to deal with another one." Zack studied her face. She said that they were fine talking about their abuse, but he could tell from the look in her eyes that it was still hard for them to talk about.

"Who adopted you?" he asked, changing the subject. "Was it Uncle Christian?"

"No," Riley stated with a low chuckle as she shook her head. "It was our music producer, Ronan McGuire." She stated. "I don't think you've met him, but now, technically we aren't the Jacksons anymore, we're the Jackson-McGuires."

"That's going to be hard to get used to," Zack remarked with a low chuckle. "But you're right, I haven't met him before. In fact," he licked his lips. "Except for the few concerts that we've gone to, I don't think that we know much about your music."

"I don't want to talk about it," Riley replied dismissively.

"Why not?" Zack pressed.

"I just don't want to alright?" Riley replied, sounding impatient. She crossed her arms over her chest and turned her head away. "It's not really any of your business anyway. We have too much to worry about now."

"Sing me something." Zack demanded, quickly turning to face her completely.

"What?" Riley blurted, thrown off.

"You heard me," Zack insisted and then gave a flirtatious smile. "I haven't heard you sing anything in a long time. I want you to sing something for me." Riley glared at him. "I can tell you're about to crack."

"I'm not 'about to crack'" she used air quotes around the words. "Newsflash, Zack, you're not as good looking as you think you are." She stated, intending the insult to sting and she knew that it had from the way that he looked at her.

"That's exactly what I meant." Zack stated quietly, shaking his head. "Every time we talk, you always go and insult me, even if I'm just trying to be nice or if I'm trying to keep you from thinking about being attacked and everything."

"It's a force of habit." Riley replied, not sounding apologetic at all.

"Why?"

"Why do you think?"

"Do you always answer a question with a question?" Zack asked and made a face. "That just means that you're hiding something." Riley turned her head away from him. "Riles, what is it?" he asked gently. "If it's anything bad, I can help you with-"

"It's not anything that someone can help me," Riley interrupted. "Only medication can."

Zack was silent for a second. "What?" Riley got up from the bed and reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a small plastic bottle and tossed it at him. Zack caught he bottle and turned it over, looking at the label. "Anticonvulsants," he read out loud and his confused expression just deepened. "What does that mean; you're prone to seizures or something?"

"No you idiot," Riley took the bottle from him. "It means that I'm bipolar and that is the medicine that keeps me from having mood swings." She scratched her forehead. "Unfortunately, the mood that I seemed to be stuck on mostly was of anger, which makes sense." She added as an afterthought.

"Hm," Zack stood up and thought for a second and then smiled as he stood in front of Riley. "That you don't hate me as much as I thought, Hot-Stuff"

"I never said that I hated you, Blondie" Riley replied and then smirked as Zack raised an eyebrow. "If you can give me a nickname I can give you one." She replied and then noticed the look on Zack's face and groaned. "Not this conversation again."

"Relax," Zack held up his hands. "I wasn't going to say anything."

Riley narrowed her eyes at him, and then looked up and down. "When did you get taller than me?" She shrugged before he could answer and then smirked again. "Never mind, I guess a lot of things change when people are apart for a while."

"Not everything." Zack replied before turning and leaving the room.

Riley watched him leave.

* * *

"Dad?"

Christian turned around, looking up from a clipboard, frowning and looking at his watch when he saw Crystal walk over to him. "Its 1:30 in the morning, I thought you were asleep." He stated seriously. "You really need it."

"I can't sleep knowing that Phantom is hurt," Crystal replied and then ignored the look that her father gave her. "And that's not the reason why dad, so don't even ask." She stated before her father could say anything.

"Duly noted." Christian replied. "But everything is going to be fine with Phantom," he stated and turned back to Phantom, who was now in his human form, lying down on an examining table. "He's going to be fine, but there was a lot of power that went through him, some power that I haven't seen or have been able to chart before."

"Yeah, it came from Bailey," Crystal replied. "We know that she's not an elemental, but somehow, she has powers, powers that are much stronger than we've ever seen."

"Interesting," Christian muttered as he rubbed his chin.

"Have you seen anything like that before?" Crystal asked eagerly, noticing the expression on his face. "Anything at all."

"I might have," Christian replied with a nod. "But I can't be sure." He then nodded. "No, I'm sure of it, I have seen something like this before."

"Really?" Crystal asked, excited. "Where? What do you know?"

"Tomorrow after everyone is feeling better and rested, I'll explain everything." Christian promised his daughter. He then gave her a kiss on the forehead. "But for right now, let's just get some sleep."

* * *

**A/N: Whew, this was a really long chapter for me to write for you guys. Alright guys, the adventure starts at this chapter, and I know that you're going to like what I have planned. What did you think of the look at the past at the beginning of the chapter? It's all going to be explained soon.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riley**


	30. Everything we ever knew before was a lie

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

* * *

"I can feel you boring holes in the back of my head, so why don't you go ahead and tell me what's bothering you." Christian stated as he turned from the stove and turned the burner on low so he could face his daughter, who was sitting on a counter across the room, staring at him. Crystal bit her lower lip as she stared at her father, her blue eyes narrowing. "Uh-uh, don't go clamming up on my now, out with it."

"Why didn't you tell me that mom was murdered?" Crystal spat as soon as the last word left his mouth. "Why didn't you tell me that I was supposed to die too?" she shook her head, starting to get hysterical. "If I knew, maybe I would have been able to-"

"To do what?" Christian interrupted sharply. "Use your powers to stop the car from being driven off the road? You didn't have your powers then, so what you could have done?" He sighed and lowered his voice, looking out into the living room, making sure that no one could hear him. "You're acting like I _wanted_ to keep the secret from you this whole time."

"What?" Crystal raised an eyebrow, her eyes flashing. "You didn't have a choice? That's a load of crap, dad!"

"Would you _want _to know that your mother was murdered by the people that want to destroy you?" Christian's voice cracked horribly as his voice rose with each word. "Trust me," he took a deep breath. "It wasn't easy know that while I was gone, trying to find a place to take you and your mother to live in peace, that my wife was murdered, my daughter was hurt, and my sister and brother in law, one of which being my best friend since college, had been murdered as well."

"How do you think it feels to have to grow up without a mom?" Crystal asked, now fully crying. "And to make it worse, at least Patrick and them knew part of the truth ever since they were young, but then their life went to hell too, because they late had to find out that they were being chased for their lives." She ran her hands over her face. "We have to go through hell, each and every day, dad, and this isn't helping me at all!"

Christian moved across the room and grabbed his daughter in a hug, kneeling on the floor as he did so. They hugged each other tightly as they thought about the family that they had lost, their loving mother, who had known what Christian was doing with his life and knew that although she was in danger, married him anyway and wanted to have a life with him. She always was able to calm Christian down, no matter how scared he got for her, and she was the one that helped him with his science experiments and research whenever he needed it, even if she didn't understand what she was doing half of the time. She was an amazing woman that Christian was happy to have in his life although he felt guilty about it at the same time. If he knew that his life would be like this, that his wife would be killed when he was young and that his daughter and his family would be constantly chased like this, he would have changed it all.

But what's done is done and all they could do now and was face the future.

* * *

"Is….Is Phantom going to be ok?" I asked Cody as I walked over to him. Cody looked up from his guardian; his eyes held large bags and it was obvious that he didn't get much sleep.

"He's going to be fine," Cody replied as he rubbed his hands over his face. "Christian, Crystal, and Sydney really got him help in time." He gave a half smile. "But I knew that he was going to make it through, Phantom is a really tough dude and I know that he'll always try his hardest to be there for me."

"Yeah," I gave a short laugh and wrung my hands in my lap as Cody sat up in his chair, watching as Phantom took in a deep breath, from where he was lying on an examination table. There was a beeping sound and I looked over to the side and saw a monitor with levels rising and falling. I wasn't sure what it was measuring, but I hoped that it was a good thing. "It looks like he's getting stronger."

"Yeah." Cody nodded.

There was an uncomfortable silence and that just caused my nerves to go into overdrive. Cody and I have never had uncomfortable or awkward silences; we were usually very comfortable around each other. Even if we said something wrong or did something stupid, we could just laugh it now. But now…I understood it when people said that they could feel tension in the air.

'_C'mon, Bailey, just talk to him_' I tried to psyche myself up. '_You two can talk about basically __anything__ so this shouldn't be that hard._'

I took a deep breath. "Cody-"

"Bailey, I want to apologize to you." Cody interrupted. I closed my mouth and nodded for him to continue. He turned towards me, looking apologetic and sad at the same time. I waited for him to continue, the beeping still filling the air. "I shouldn't have snapped at you, when what happened was an accident and you were trying to protect us, our guardians, and yourself." He took a deep breath. "I let all of my frustration with everything get in the way when I saw that Phantom was hurt. I let my frustration of having to constantly be on the run, have a fear of my life and for my friend's lives, and for my brother, everything that I have kept inside, ever since I found out about elementals, I needed to let out." He rubbed his forehead. "Zack has been able to do that ever since we first figured it out, he lets it out in his fighting, but I keep it all inside."

"And when I couldn't control my powers, and when I accidentally hurt Phantom, it was like watching someone from WingzCorp or whatever," I wasn't sure if they were our enemy anymore, no one knew for sure. "Hurting him themselves."

"Exactly." Cody turned and took my hand in his. "I know that you probably won't forgive me, but I'm really, _really_ sorry for yelling at you. You didn't deserve it and I shouldn't have done it."

"Oh Cody," I replied with a sigh."I don't know what to say," I admitted as I shook my head. "There's so much going on with me right now, but," I lightly squeezed his hands. "Hopefully this will help." I moved forward and kissed him, he reacted almost immediately.

I could tell, in that kiss, that it was what we both needed. Something that wasn't confusing and something that didn't threaten each other, it made us both feel safe.

"I was going to see how Phantom was doing, but I guess that I shouldn't have bothered."

I turned around to see Crystal slowly walking down the stairs, her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes were red and she was sniffing a little bit, I could tell, from the way that she moved her hands over her face that she was trying to keep from crying, or was trying to hide the fact that she had been crying before. But it was no use, as usual, Cody was super perceptive.

"Crys, what's wrong?" Cody asked, immediately concerned. "Have you been crying?"

"What does it matter?" she replied quickly and took a deep breath, running her hands over her face one more time and bringing her hair back into a ponytail as she walked over to Phantom. "Phantom is going to be fine; it's just the sudden surge of extra power that went through his system that hurt him." She explained. "In other words, it's like having a batter that has a full charge and then charging it past its capacity."

"Oh great," Cody beamed as he looked down at Phantom. "That's such great news." He lifted his head and smiled at Crystal. "Thank you, I know that he wouldn't be doing better if it weren't for you."

Crystal shrugged. "My dad did all the work." She commented coolly. "Anyway, Dad sent me down to check on Phantom, but he's ready to tell us what he knows so we should be getting back up there."

"Got it." Cody nodded and left the room.

Crystal started to follow him, but I stopped her, putting my arm out in front of her. "I'm just going to get to the point," I stated and pulled my hair behind my ears. "I know that you don't like me, and I don't understand why. I know that Riley and Rhuben don't trust me, but with you, I feel that there's something else there."

"I don't know what you're-"

"Koto told me that Cody used to date you and Rhuben," I interrupted. "And I know that Rhuben is completely over him, because I can tell from the way she acts around him, but you," I crossed my arms over my chest. "You still have feeling for Cody don't you?"

"No, I don't." Crystal shook her head, her hands tightening into fists.

"It's the only explanation," I insisted. "As to why you don't like me, why you're always putting me down with those little side comments, thinking that I don't understand. But we're in this together now and-"

"It's not that I don't like you, it's that I'm worried about Cody." Crystal interrupted. "I could see upset he was after he and Rhuben broke up, although they did it on mutual terms, and when we broke up we didn't really have a choice and I could tell that it hurt him then too. I'm just trying to protect him."

"He doesn't need protecting," I stated quietly. "At least, not from me." I took a step forward. "I'm not going to hurt Cody and I think-"

"What if you get killed?" Crystal interrupted. "How would Cody feel after that? I already know, he'll think it was his fault and it would just break his heart even more, because you can get killed even easier than the rest of us could. You can't protect him from that."

"But you could." I ran my hands over the sides of my pants, making a note to myself that they were starting to become baggy, and stared at her. "I think that things will be so much easier, that everything will go much smoother is we just patch things up and try to help each other, we don't have to like each other exactly, but be on better terms."

Crystal regarded me and she looked like she was trying to figure out what to do. Staring into her blue eyes, I realized how vulnerable she looked and I could tell that she didn't like it. I could see her shutters go down again and she let out a heavy sigh.

"C'mon, my dad's waiting." She walked by me and up the stairs.

'_At least I tried_' I turned and followed her up the stairs and into the living room where everyone was gathered around. I sat down on the ground next to Aaron, who perked up, seeming to listen as I sat down next to him.

"Hi Bailey." He greeted, his sightless eyes looking straight ahead.

"Hi," I replied and smiled. "How'd you know it was me?"

"The way that you carry yourself when you're walking, girly, but knowing when to take charge." He shifted. "Plus, I can tell from the way that you smell," he twisted his mouth to the side. "Not that I'm saying you smell or anything. But everyone has a different sent, and you…kind of smell like a farm."

"That's because I'm from-"

"Can we get on with this please?" Zack interrupted.

"Always short tempered, "Aaron replied, not sounding offended at all. "Go ahead, daddy."

"Alright, well," Christian rubbed his neck. "I'm not sure where to start." He cleared his throat. "Well, yes I can, what I can tell you is that everything that has happened in my past is true, Halo Syndicate was the one that killed my wife," he paused. "And Crystal's mother, and was the one that killed my sister-in-law, and my brother-in-law, who was also one of my best friends since college. And yes, it _is_ true that Core was the one that we had been working with when we first found out about the elementals. You see, we were the only three that, we thought, knew about them at the time, but that was before Halo Syndicate came around."

"But what about the powers that Bailey has, can you explain that?" Max asked, leaning forward on the couch.

"I can, actually," Christian nodded and turned to me. "From what Crystal has told me, while you're able to suddenly exhibit some powers, while not being an elemental, you have also been hearing a voice, am I right?"

I nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Well, we have seen this before," Christian stated. "In fact, it was Nathan that had had this happen to him." He noticed the expressions on our faces. "Nathan Reeves is Core's real name." he explained quickly.

"Who would have thought that someone with such a normal name could turn out to be the one that chased us for most of our life?" Zack grunted.

"He, one day, ended up being taken over by a shaman of some sorts from the elemental world one day," Christian explained. "If you don't understand, what I mean is that there are two different worlds, the elemental world," he held up one hand. "And the human world. Over the years the two worlds' separate existences have slowly meshed together." He brought his hands together. "Until what we have now, where more and more elementals are appearing as each day goes on, while when I was in college, it was a rare occurrence."

"One day, Nathan, Reed, and I were trying to figure out all we could about the elementals and Reed had a dream where he could see the elemental kingdom. Oddly enough, he also saw a ceremony where a person from the elemental world had his ceremony to get his animal spirit as well as go to the one that he was going to be guardian of for the rest of his life."

Suddenly the guardians appeared in the room in their small forms. "That's what each of us had to go through," Canis explained as she curled up in Max's lap, resting her muzzle on her front paws. "Each of us knew when we were old enough, who we were going to be protecting was, but we had to wait until we had our ceremony to take our animal spirit before we could come to you."

"It would only happen when each of you awakened." DeathLiger added.

"But DeathLiger and I, when we were on our way to Riley and Rhuben, we were taken in by WingzCorp," DalFang explained. "And they held us for testing, until they came and took us back." He shuddered. "We always knew that we were destined to be Riley's and Rhuben's guardians and we knew that they were going to be powerful, but they must have gotten really powerful when they had to develop their powers without us."

"Which is why Core had been chasing after us," Noah reasoned. "Because he knew that they were the stronger elementals, before Zack and Cody at least."

"No, you're wrong." Christian commented sternly. "But you didn't let me finish my earlier statement. There is a Shaman in the elemental world that is using Bailey as a medium, to try and help you guys, because he is looking over the guardians."

"So…" the reality struck me. "I'm not an elemental?"

"No," Christian shook his head. "But while you have that power, while the Shaman is looking out for you, you can learn how to use that power like any elemental can."

"Ok, so how, do you know the reasoning behind Core's chasing us?" Tapeworm asked, scratching the back of his neck.

"I think I'll let him tell you that." Christian replied and turned on his heel and left the room. My eyes widened and I looked around, Patrick and Noah were sitting tensely on the couch and Sydney's staff appeared in his hands and he held it up defensively.

Christian came back into the room with a tall, brunette trailing behind him. His grey eyes shone with a wild light, but he looked older than I thought as well as looked tired. So this was Nathan Reeves aka Core. The one that had been hunting down my friends.

"You can all relax; I'm not going to hurt you." Core stated as he held up his hands reassuringly. Sydney continued to hold onto his staff. "I just want to talk."

"So talk!" Riley spat.

Core looked over at her and smiled. "Ah, I see that your temper hasn't changed much. Has the therapy and medication been helping you?" His smile grew a bit wider. "It's funny, because your dad had a bad temper at times as well." He looked at the Jacksons. "I cans see him in each of you."

"Get to the point!" Patrick growled slowly.

"I'm sure that you're going to want to know everything from the start," Core sighed. "Well, to explain things first, the reason that all of you are elementals is because someone in your family was an elemental as well and the gene has been passed down." He placed a hand on his chest. "From research, I have found out that my grandfather was an elemental, and although neither my mom nor my dad had powers, it got passed down to me."

"D-does that mean that mom was an elemental?" Crystal asked as she turned to her dad. "Or that she knew more about it than you thought?"

"It's plausible," Christian replied slowly, as if he was deep in thought. "She did seem to know the solution to any problem that I was having, but, I never noticed if she had an element mark and that's something that I make sure I know about someone."

"What about our mom and dad?" Zack demanded. "If any of them knew about elements, or their parents, or our great-grandparents, how come they haven't said anything about it?"

"The same reason you haven't," Core replied calmly. "To keep their family safe. But being elementals can skip generations, so it would be hard to trace. But, I didn't come to talk about that, I came to explain myself and my actions. I'll admit that when I started WingzCorp, I wanted to be able to create my own elementals. I didn't even want to listen to Christian or Reed when they begged me to stop, but I couldn't. When Halo Syndicate came into existence, I kept the group, but decided to use it for a different purpose. Halo Syndicate, I came to know, where evil and wanted to do nothing but take over the world, so I changed my tactics. When I found out that Reed had been murdered as well as a failed murder attempt on Christian, I knew that I was going to be next. So I changed my name to Core and changed my appearance so they couldn't find me."

"After a few months of hiding, I knew that it was time to start my plan again, but to use it to destroy WingzCorp. Before, I had already taken a few children-"

"Tori, Tora, and the others." Crystal reasoned, to which Core nodded to.

"And I figured that I could use more to help me," Core continued. "So I had been watching Crystal, Riley, Rhuben, Patrick, Noah, and Sydney ever since each and every one of them had been born and I knew that they were all different and knew that they could potentially be elementals. And I was right. So when Riley and Rhuben had awakened, I took their guardians because with my readings, I knew that they were going to be some of the strongest ones at the time, because they're some reincarnates of ancient beings in the elemental world, but we'll get to that later. I took their guardians with the intent of using their power to try and protect the new elementals of this time, not wanting them to get hurt. But I knew that it wouldn't work for so long-"

"So what you're telling me," Rhuben interrupted him sharply. "Is that the only reason that you took DeathLiger and used him for your own research was to protect us?"

"You wanted to take their powers to protect us?" Riley basically repeated the question, but who could blame her, it was hard to fathom.

The one guy that they thought that they were supposed to be fighting against this whole time was trying to keep them from getting hurt from another group that they didn't know was trying to attack them. It just made things that much more confusing, not that their life wasn't that hard to being with. But it seemed that as more questions were answered, the more confusing everything had gotten.

"Yes," Core nodded. "I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I knew that the kids of my best friends were in danger. So I wanted to try and keep Halo Syndicate from you by harnessing your power."

"But when Zack and Cody were awakened by Riley and Rhuben-"Core interrupted Max this time.

"Through research I found out that there were even stronger than Riley and Rhuben were, or ever could be, and wanted to use _their_ power to protect them all." Core explained. "Everything that I had done, even though it was probably in the worst way possible, was all so I could keep what's happening now from happening."

"I know it will probably be hard for you guys to understand this," Christian stated with a sigh. "But Nathan was my best friend then and he's my best friend now and although his actions weren't the best ones, I know that we can all trust him."

"This just so hard for our brains to wrap around." Crystal said as she shook her head. "It's like, everything that we ever knew before was a lie."

"I can promise you that we're going to do everything we can to make sure that this treat is taken care of and that no one else is going to get hurt," Core stated. "Not if we can help it. I'm going to give you all of the help that I can give."

Suddenly there was a bright flash of light.

Windows disintegrated all around us; the ground shook and heaved, and felt like it was going to split apart. Every piece of furniture or object that was not secured instantly went flying across the room, tossing my friends with them. Dishes, silverware, decorations, pictures, chairs, bookcases… they all tumbled onto their side and shattered.

The last thing that I saw before everything went dark was a bookshelf falling towards me…

* * *

**A/N: I don't know if I made Crystal's and Christian's argument realistic enough, if you guys don't think so, I'll go back and edit it. Anyway, now things are getting a little weirder, Christian had been hiding Core with him all along, and now they've found out a lot about Halo Syndicate and what they're up to and why Core had been chasing the Jacksons. I'm not sure how long this story is going to be, but it's not going to end in the next ten chapters or anything, I still have some ideas with this. I hope that you'll stick with me no matter how long it gets.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riley**


	31. Rest

CHAPTER THIRTY

* * *

Bailey woke with a start. All she saw first was nothing. It was all white. She quickly sat up and stared at her surroundings.

Still nothing.

"Where am I?" She mumbled.

"Hello, Bailey Pickett." Someone behind her called in a calm voice.

Bailey quickly turned around and came face to face with a tall, blond woman with piercing blue eyes and was wearing a long green and white dress with a shawl over her shoulders. For some reason, when Bailey saw her, she felt calm. At least, calmer than she had a second ago.

"How do you know my name ?" she whispered.

The woman smiled. "I know a lot of things, Bailey."

In an instant the woman's appearance changed and she was now wearing a long gown with an orange flower design and a golden crown with a book on her palm. Warmth seemed to radiate from her. Bailey felt her mouth drop.

The person merely smiled. "My name is Geneva, and I am here to tell you of your mission."

"What mission?" Bailey whispered. "I don't…I don't know what you're talking about.

"Ah... but you do, Bailey." She smiled sadly. "You were brought into this; your mission was created when you first found out about Zack and Cody. The woman nodded. "I am a spirit from the elementals world sent here to help you. I have been using you as my medium"

"You're...you're the Shaman from the elemental world." Bailey suddenly realized and then smiled. "You must be so important with everything that my friends are going through." Gevenva smiled and nodded. "Are you really…this young?"

"In the elemental world, you don't physically age after a certain age, depending on your species." Geneva explained patiently. "I don't physically age after the age of 25, but I am hundreds of years old." Her smile widened a little. "I don't know how much longer I'm going to be around, no one can really tell, but I'm still going to help you in any way that I can." She reached out a placed a hand on top of Bailey's head, causing her to feel warm. "Don't ever forget that you are important and can help the others."

"But they don't trust me."

"They _will_ trust you," Geneva stated patiently. "I know they will, give them time, they're stressed and haven't had much time to make friends, who isn't an elemental, that have found out their secret and want to genuinely help them. But you do and that's special."

"How are Zack and Cody?" Bailey suddenly cried, looking impatient. "Sydney? Tapeworm? Are they all ok? Are we all ok?"

"Bailey, everything is fine." Geneva's smile faded and a dark look crossed her features. "The war has started, and thing will change, but right now, everything is fine."

"I just want to go home, ok?" Bailey pouted.

"But Bailey, you're still needed with your friends, and that's where I'm sending you right now. I'm sending you back; you just needed a little rest…"

_Rest…_

_Rest…_

_Rest…_

…

..

.

Bailey opened her eyes…

* * *

**A/N: Alright, I hope you guys are…well, frustrated that this is a short chapter and makes you anticipate the next one. That's what I was planning. Don't worry, Bailey's not dead. No one is. I wrote it in third person for a reason. I hope you liked it.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riley**


	32. You will burn!

**A/N: Next few chapters, including this one, are going to be in 3****rd**** person POV.**

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

* * *

"Is everyone ok?" Core asked as he lowered his hands. Bailey looked around to see that no one was hurt and they all got to their feet, looking around shakily. "I didn't think that any of your guys' power would be able to put up a force field strong enough so I had to use one of my own."

"But, you're not an elemental." Christian pointed out.

"Be that as it may," Core replied, he held out his hands to show that he was wearing gloves. "These gloves that I have made, harness some energy and power from and elemental to create a shield at whim. You just have to concentrate hard and it will work."

"What was that?" Tapeworm asked his voice still in a whisper.

"Our house." Crystal muttered as she looked around the room, everything was gone, completely shelled out from the inside, but the structure was still standing and as there wasn't a creaking sound to give away that it could potentially collapse, it was still safe.

"Is everyone alright?" Cody repeated the unanswered question as he looked around and then nodded. "It looks like everyone is fine."

"What happened?" Sydney gasped his eyes wide.

"It seemed to me like a bomb went off," Christian replied, swallowing thickly. "Not in the house, but outside of it. But because of the destruction to the house and because of the fact that there is no fire around, I have to say we've been attacked."

"But how could they find us here?" Max asked, her eyes growing wide as well. "We didn't tell anyone where we were going and you have that force-field up, and-"

"Because someone back at WingzCorp knows that we're in Boston." Bailey spoke up suddenly, causing everyone to turn to her. "And they can't be trusted, I don't know which one of the others it is, but there is someone that is trying to betray us." She was met with stunned silence.

How could it be that someone that they had even gone to trust and had been saved by, betray them? Getting curveballs thrown at them was something that they were used to, but right now, with the desperation that they were feeling to end this war for good, it just caused the idea of being betrayed to hit harder than it ever had before.

"Seriously?" Rhuben's eyes flashed with anger as she cracked her knuckles. "Does that surprise anyone at all? Anyone?"

"Now before you go and blow up the place even further," Christian held his arms out warily, noticing that Rhuben's hands had started to glow a dark purple. He turned to Bailey. "How did you know that? Did the spirit tell you?"

"Yes," Bailey nodded. "A couple of days ago, actually." She confessed. "And her name is Geneva." She added. "Ever since I got taken over by her…" she paused a little, not exactly sure how to explain it. "I've been getting these visions and things. There was one vision of Zack and Cody having blown up the SS Tipton, even with innocent people and our friends still on it. That was the only vision I had, but then she's been telling me things, while helping me along. She's been boosting up my confidence, telling me that I'm actually meant to know what's going on with my friends, and she's also told me that someone in WingzCorp is someone that we can't trust."

"Then who could it-"

"We don't have time to figure out who could have been the one to betray us." Noah interrupted. "We have to figure out what's going on out there and it's better if we go now, unless we want to put them and the rest of Boston in danger."

"Not that it would matter," Patrick reasoned lazily, but holding a grim tone as well. "No matter where we go, these people are going to find us."

"So what do you think we should do?" Sydney turned to Zack, who let out a breath and scratched his forehead.

"I think…" he paused and then nodded to himself, gaining confidence. "What we should do first is get Julius and Maddie. Then Cody and I are going to find our mom and dad and…either tell them the truth about us being elementals, or that Boston isn't safe for them to live in anymore, and convince them to leave. While we're doing that, everyone else will be fighting off Halo Syndicate, since I can almost guarantee that this is their doing. You guys will fight them to keep them distracted from us so we can get our mom and dad out of here."

"What about Aaron and my dad?" Crystal demanded. "I'm not leaving them here."

"The way I see it, with all of their elemental stuff in the basement, they'll actually be pretty safe here as long as they stay in hiding like they have been doing before." Zack replied, speaking slowly as he looked at Christian, as if asking if it was ok for him to tell the grown man what to do.

"Well, whatever you come up with, I'm backing you 100%." Tapeworm stated with a nod and a confident smile. "Tell me what to do and I'll do it."

"Same here." Max and Patrick agreed.

"Mhm." Sydney nodded.

"Looks like you're going to have a lot of responsibility on your hands from now on." Core commented, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Yeah, I guess so." Zack replied as he glared at the man before holding out his arm. Blazen appeared on his outstretched arm. "Alright, let's get going guys, we're going to go out and see if it really was Halo Syndicate that's been bothering us, but be careful when you get out there, be wary of any attack and stay on your toes." The other guardians appeared by their masters and mistresses and they all climbed on. "Let's go!"

Zack led the others out of the house and into the air, and almost as soon as they did so, a large green orb of energy went shooting towards them. But they got out of the way in time and turned around to see the orb of energy fall to the ground. As soon as it connected with the asphalt, the ground seemed to implode. Cars immediately disintegrated and the people that had been frozen in the battle plain had been disintegrated as well.

"Oh my god." Bailey gasped, covering her mouth with her hands before shakily lowering them down to Phantom's back, gently grabbing onto his feathers as she swallowed thickly.

"It's something that, unfortunately, you're going to have to get used to, Bailey." Cody commented from where he was sitting in front of her.

"Should have known that it was Zhane again." Max commented as Canis turned around, her shackles rising as she started to growl low in her throat. Zhane was smirking as he floated high above them, his hands glowing green. "He must really want to get rid of us."

"He's not the only one." Tapeworm added as Hayden and the four girls that they had seen in the forest then floated up next to Zhane. "Something tells me this is the big fight guys."

"Something tells me you're right." Riley agreed.

"So I don't think that you've met Jennifer, Leslie, Hillary, or Ashley yet." Zhane said as he turned to the four girls, waving his arm with a flourish. "They just some of the many people that are going to help me get rid of this pathetic existence."

"Oh yeah?" Zack retorted. "We're not going to let that happen."

"What you don't realize, though, is that you don't have a choice." Zhane replied and brought his arms above his head, charging up his energy again as a large ball of emerald energy appeared above his head.

"Everyone split up and take them out!" Zack instructed and nudging Blazen on the back he went after Zhane, everyone else immediately following his lead and taking off in different directions as well.

"Precisely what I wanted." Zhane murmured to himself as he waited for Zack to get closer. "Hayden, time for a snake," his smirk widened. "You like birds right!"

Hayden jumped in front of Zhane, immediately altering his appearance by taking on the animal spirit of the chameleon. He opened his jaws wide, sharp teeth dripping with drool, ready to leap out towards Blazen.

"Get out of the way," Zack cried, leaning to the side on Blazen's back.

"Got it." Blazen quickly tilted his body in the direction that Zack was leaning and quickly did a 180 away from Hayden and Zhane. "I don't think flying too close is going to help much, it'll probably be easier if you used your wings too."

"I was thinking the same thing." Phantom agreed as he floated up next to his brother, watching as the others fought with the other members of Halo Syndicate. "More fighting power."

"Alright." Cody nodded and he and Zack grew their wings out of their backs and jumped off of their guardians, easily floating into the air. "I think a little fire power should help as well." He held out his hand. "Water of the-"

"Cody, watch out!" Bailey cried, a second too late.

Hayden swung around and his tail smacked into Cody's back. The force of the tail hitting him knocked the wind out of him as well as breaking Cody's wings simultaneously. He started to fall out of the sky and towards the large hole that Zhane had created in the ground.

"Cody!" Zack cried, watching as his brother fell.

"Watch it!" Patrick raced over and threw himself onto his stomach and reached an arm out just in time grab onto Cody's arm. "Gotcha!" He cried, swinging his other hand down, getting a better hold onto Cody's wrist.

"Thanks," Cody gasped, looking down at the endless hole he was dangling in. "I owe ya one."

"You owe me plenty," Patrick replied, gritting his teeth as he tried to hold onto Cody's weight. "But, you can pay me back when I'm sure that my back isn't going to be blasted open at any second." He shifted his grip on Cody. "I need a little help here!" he called over his shoulder.

"Hang on Master Patrick; I'm doing the best I can." ThunderTatsu replied as he flew around in a tight circle, following Jennifer, blasting lightning bolts towards her, but she felt flying out of the way and sending his attacks right back at him. "Just hold on a second longer."

"Can you hold on a second longer?" Patrick asked as he turned back to Cody, despite the situation, he had a smile on his face.

"No problem," Cody replied, smiling back.

Phantom flew back to the ground and Bailey quickly got off of his back, hurrying over to Patrick and got on the ground by him and flung her arms down, grabbing onto Cody's other arm, making it easier for Patrick to hold on. "C'mon, let's get him out of here."

She and Patrick started to pull Cody out of the hole.

"Alright guys," Zhane gathered his henchmen's' attention. "It's time to get rid of them, and the easiest way to do that," he smirked. "Is by divide and conquer."

Hayden charged up an attack and blasted it towards Bailey, Cody, and Patrick. The energy from the blast knocked them into the air and sent them flying off in one direction, Hayden charging after them. Zhane, Jennifer, Ashley, Hilary, and Leslie all took his lead and did the same, charging up their energy and send it to the kids, sending them all off into different directions, each blast shooting them over miles away.

* * *

"Hey, wake up." Zack shook Riley's shoulder. Her eyes shot open and darted around before she sat up. "Good you're awake, are you ok?"

Riley checked her arms and legs for a few moments before replying. "I'll be fine as soon as Zhane is dead." She replied and got to her feet, brushing off the seat of her pants as she looked around. They were still in the city, that was obvious, but it was way too quiet. "Are we still in a battle barrier?"

"It's possible." Zack replied, his voice clipped.

"What's wrong?" Riley asked, immediately noticing his tone.

"I had conjured up my sword seconds before we were blasted away," Zack replied as she scratched his neck. "I think they, whichever one of Zhane's henchmen is, took it." He looked up as he heard a flapping sound and watched as Blazen and DalFang gently glided back down to their masters. "Did you see anything?" Zack asked as he Blazen landed on his shoulder.

"No," Blazen shook his head, his eyes moving around rapidly. "We're in a battle field; there weren't many places that we could go before we hit a dead-end."

"I'm glad to see you're ok, Mistress." DalFang commented as he turned into his small form and climbed up onto Riley's head. "Not that I worried much." He added. "But its best if we stay on our toes, the sun is going to go down soon and we don't know if there's any food or anything around here."

"Alright, let's go check to see if we can find any food or shelter or something." Zack decided and he and Riley walked out of the wooded area cautiously.

"Zack." Riley stated after a minute.

"Yeah?" Zack turned towards her.

Riley lifted her head and looked Zack straight in the eye. "If we ever get into a battle, I want you to go and hide."

"What?" Zack's eyes widened, although he continued to walk along with her. "What do you mean?" He shook his head. "I'm going with you!" he declared.

"This battle could be dangerous," Riley insisted. "If whichever one of these Halo Syndicate people attack you, and use even more power than we experienced, you could be wiped out. And I'd rather that we save our strongest bit our power for our last resort." She clenched her hands into fists. "I already made up my mind about it, so don't try changing it."

Zack continued to look at her for a few minutes and then slowly relaxed, nodding. "I don't agree with it, but I'll drop it for now." He tilted his head back. "C'mon."

DalFang climbed down to Riley's shoulder. "I still think that you have ulterior motives on that decision Mistress." He commented so only she could hear.

"Shut up, DalFang." Riley replied sharply.

"I'm just saying that I'm a part of you and I can feel basically everything that you feel." DalFang continued, a wicked gleam coming to his red eyes. "Whatever you decide is the reason, I'll back you up on it."

"Has anyone ever told you that you can be really irritating?" Riley asked, bringing up a hand and running it over his back.

* * *

"I don't know if these were completely thawed out or not, but they should be fine." Riley stated as she took a hamburger off of a stick and handed it over to Zack. "Sorry there's no bun or anything else, I couldn't find anything in that home's refrigerator; it looked like no one was there for a while."

"I'm sure it's fine." Zack replied as he took the burger, staring at the fire. He looked it over before taking a bite, making a face. "It sure is bland though."

"You're telling me," Blazen, in his human form, commented as he held his nose shut with his fingers, chewing a burger. "Eating worms is better than this."

"Well, unless you want to use dirt as a seasoning, that's all you're going to get." Riley replied, not taking any offense at all. She crossed her legs and smiled as DalFang climbed into her lap. In the battle barrier that they were stuck in, Zack and Riley went from house to house looking for food, most of it was gone, probably taken by the person that was holding them, and could only find frozen hamburgers left over. So they went back to the woods, not wanting to be attacked in someone's house and risk having it destroyed, and built a fire to cook the food on.

"What are you thinking about?" she questioned when she noticed the look on Zack's face.

"I just hope that Cody and the others are ok." Zack replied, still staring into the flames. "If they aren't, then it would be in my fault, since I was the one that said to go out and confront these guys."

"They're fine," Riley comforted him. "If not, then you would know it." She tossed her hair over her shoulder. "We're all really strong, and this may be the strongest people that we ever have to face, but I know that we can finally get this whole elemental war over with."

"What do you think is going to happen when we finish it?" Zack asked suddenly.

"What do you mean?" Riley asked, looking at him intently.

"I mean what's going to happen?" Zack replied as he shrugged. "WITH OUR POWERS GO AWAY? Will the whole world know of our existence as elementals? Will be tested on?" He shrugged again. "What will happen?" He sighed. "I know that we don't have any answers about it, but I just still want to know. Kinda like," he paused. "I want to know if Core s telling the truth about everything."

"I don't even want to talk about that," Riley shook her head, looking at him sharply. "So don't even try!" All of a sudden she tensed up as DalFang and Blazen got to their feet, looking around sharply. "Crimson Scorpion!" Riley's chain sickle appeared in her hand and DalFang grew to his large form. "Let's go, buddy."

"I'm coming with you." Zack declared.

"I told you already I don't-"

"You may not want me to come, but then what happens if you get really hurt?" Zack demanded. "I don't want to scare you, but what would you do if DalFang got hurt to? I can still be the backup power you need or whatever, but I'm not going to let you go out there by yourself."

"Aren't you missing some sort of declaration of love here?" Riley asked as she raised an eyebrow. Zack grinned.

"I was saving that for later."

"C'mon then."

Zack quickly got onto Blazen's back and followed Riley out into the city, following their instincts to find the person that had trapped them there. It wasn't hard to find Hayden; he was waiting for them, sitting calmly on an overpass, looking out at the city underneath him. Riley got off of DalFang and moved close to him, rubbing his back.

"Don't come into the fight unless I tell you to," she instructed. "If anything, I can use you and our combined power as a last resort to make sure that Zack stays safe." DalFang slid his eyes over to her. "I know, but you're my guardian and you have to listen to me, even if I make stupid decisions.

"Yes, Riley," DalFang replied and gave her a gentle lick on the cheek. "Be careful."

Riley smiled and gave him a hug around the neck. "I will." She promised and set a frown of determination on his face as she turned to Hayden.

"So to make it a fair fight, I decided to let you guys rest a little, have something to eat, before I destroyed you." Hayden commented as she walked over to him, keeping his cold, lifeless eyes on her.

"Famous last words." Riley replied and grabbed onto her chain sickle and threw it towards Hayden. It flew towards him, and at the last second, he pulled out a large, jewel encrusted sword, and deflected it with that.

Riley growled as her chain sickle went flying back towards her and she caught it in her hand. She then grunted in pain and grabbed onto her shoulder, gasping as blood slipped out through her fingers and onto the ground.

"What happened?" Zack gasped, looking over at Blazen. "How did he do that with my sword?"

"I-I don't know." He whispered back.

DalFang made a whining sound and shifted his feet.

"So, how do you like the taste of the blood sucker?" Hayden asked, a crazy grin sliding onto his face. "The power allows you to hurt your opponent by touching the other's sword or blade or in your case your chain sickle."

"That is not good." Riley muttered under her breath, still holding onto her arm.

"You can't attack restlessly, mistress." DalFang commented, starting to pace from his restlessness. "Think logically and I know that you can do this."

Riley nodded, keeping her eyes on Hayden.

Hayden let out a cry of attack and jumped high into the air, holding Zack's sword above his head. He started to bring it down, aiming for Riley's head, but she rolled out of the way at the last second and threw her chain sickle at him, keeping a firm grip on the weight in her left hand. She watched as the chain sick flew forward and embedded itself into Hayden's side before she pulled it back out. Blood splattered to the ground, but Hayden didn't make any noise to show that he was in pain. It was as if the attack didn't even hurt him. Hayden just turned and swung the sword at her again.

They went like that, back and forth, attacking and dodging the best they could. Zack, Phantom, and DalFang watched the battle impatiently. Zack gritted his teeth in frustration when he noticed that Riley was starting to slow down and he knew that that was Hayden's plan all along. He was going to use her frustration and anger against her by causing her to use most of her energy early into the fight so he would have a good chance of killing her.

'_That must have been what DalFang meant when he said not to attack restlessly._' Zack thought to himself as he watched Hayden jump back a few feet, holding onto his sword as if it was a piece of paper. While Riley, on the other hand, was breathing heavily, looking like she was having trouble holding onto her chain sickle. '_Don't give up yet, Riles, I know that you can do this._'

"I'm ok." She gasped.

"You underestimated his abilities." DalFang reasoned. "Let me help you-"

"Stay back!" Riley cried, her eyes widening a little. "I can handle this!"

"No," Hayden shook his head. "You can't!" He took on his animal spirit and charged towards Riley. DalFang howled loudly and jumped over Riley and got in between her and Hayden. Hayden, though, must have seen it coming, as he quickly darted forward and bit DalFang's shoulder before clawing him across the face, and finishing him off by turning around and slamming his tail into DalFang's side.

"DalFang!" Riley cried, watching as he fell back.

He landed heavily on his side, a gash ripped open at his shoulder, his eyes were squeezed shut and he was convulsing slightly. Obviously he was in a lot of pain.

"I'm getting tired of this," Hayden commented, as he lost his chameleon parts. "I thought that fighting you would be fun before I went and fought the strongest one and destroyed him. But now I'm getting bored."

"You want to fight me huh?" Zack growled. "Then you've got it!" He started to move forward but found that his legs couldn't move. "What?" He reached down and grabbed onto his ankle, trying to move it, grunting as he pulled. '_What's going on_?' He looked up at Phantom and saw that he was frantically flapping his arms, trying to take flight, but he couldn't move as well.

"Zack, get out of here!" Riley called as she backed up each step that Hayden took towards her.

"I can't!" Zack called back, pulling his leg as hard as he could, but it seemed to be cemented to the ground. "I can't move!"

"Time to end this!" Hayden spread his arms out, until it looked like he wanted a hug, and then brought his arms together, clasping his hands together as they glowed green. He smirked as large, thick vines broke through the concrete and asphalt covering the overpass and wrapped themselves around Riley's arms, legs, and neck. "Didn't you know that I can control nature as well?"

"So you're an elemental?" Zack demanded.

"No, I'm not." Hayden replied and his mask slipped a little. He looked hurt. "I don't remember much from when I was young, but I know that I wasn't born an elemental." Then the crazy look was in his eyes. "But I have the power I need now and I'm going to follow Zhane as he needs me, like I have been for the past 10 years."

"How old are you?" Zack asked, frantically trying to keep his attention as Hayden continued to walk towards Riley.

"17." Hayden replied.

"If Zhane is 20, and you've been working with him for the past 10 years, how could he have the knowledge to do that?" Zack whispered to himself. "And how would Core know who he was?" Zack thought about it for a second and then his eyes widened when the answer came to him. '_Of course, it's so obvious!_'

His attention was turned back to Riley as she let out a strangled cry of pain, the vines cutting into her skin tighter, but not hard enough to break the skin.

"Ah," Hayden chuckled to himself as he held up the sword again. "What a pleasant sight." He started to laugh a psychotic laugh, swinging the sword back and forth as he went. "At last, I can get the power! At last, its mine! It's mine! It's mine! At last, it's mine!" He glowed a bright green and sent the energy towards Riley, smiling as it hit her.

Zack slammed his eyes shut and jammed his hands over his ears as Riley screamed with agony over and over again as the strong energy continued to rack her body. She squeezed her eyes shut, tears falling down her cheek as she continued to scream.

'_The pain,_' she thought to herself. '_It hurts so much! I've never felt pain like this before, why did I think that I could do this?_'

_Because you can_ DalFang's voice slid into her head. He sounded like he was in pain, but was stronger than Riley was. _I know you can do it; all you need is a little more energy. I can give that to you._

"ZACK! LOOK!" Blazen shouted.

Zack forced his eyes open and watched as DalFang, still lying on the ground, rolled onto his three good paws. He glowed a bright red and then the light shot forward and hit Riley. Her screaming suddenly stopped and she lifted her head, glaring at Hayden so fiercely that he stopped walking towards her

Riley suddenly burst into flames, the vines that were holding her immediately disintegrating against the head. She held out her hand, dropping her chain sickle, and Zack's hand went flying out of Hayden's grasp and into her own. She slowly started to walk towards Hayden this time. He regained his conscious and growled, turning into a full chameleon this time, charging towards her, glowing bright green.

"All I need is one second, one breath," Riley whispered to herself. "One chance to strike!" She lifted Zack's sword high over her head. "You will burn!" She shouted and then let out a scream as the sword burst into flames and she swung it down.

A large fireball mixed with energy, larger than Zack had ever been able to conjure without intense concentration, formed and shot towards Hayden. It hit him and he immediately reverted back to his human form and screamed as his body was cut and burned, splattering blood everywhere. Some hit the side of Riley's face, but she ignored it as she watched Hayden. The fire disappeared and Hayden fell back to the ground.

His clothes and skin were smoldering and he shook his head back and forth weakly. "No," he whispered. "It wasn't supposed to end like this."

Grunting, Riley grabbed the sword and shoved it straight through Hayden's chest, turning her head and closing her eyes in disgust at the sound. She pulled the sword back out of his chest and turned and walked away from Hayden.

As Zack looked away from Hayden at the same time that Riley had killed him, he noticed three large chameleons were holding onto his feet, the same as Blazen. Blazen quickly got rid of them by spewing three fireballs at it and Zack just punched them with a flaming fist before they were killed as well.

"Must have been feeding off of Hayden's power." Blazen muttered as he turned into his human form. "Along with the battle barrier, we should be able to find some of the others now." He looked over at Zack and then smiled a little. "I'm going to check on DalFang." He said and walked over to the other guardian as Riley walked over to Zack.

"Here's your sword." Riley stated, still breathing heavily as she handed it out to Zack. "Sorry it took so long."

"Are you ok?" Zack asked anxiously as he took the sword and held it in his hand and concentrated on his power, causing it to disappear.

"Me," Riley gave a tired smile. "I'm fine."

"Why did you do that?" Zack whispered his voice cracking. "I could have helped, somehow. You could have been killed!"

"But I wasn't," Riley shook her head. "And DalFang helped me, just like I knew he would." She looked over at her guardian. "I hope he'll be ok." She looked at Zack again. "Zack, I'm fine. Trust me."

"You didn't answer my question." Zack reminded her gently.

Riley hesitated. "Which one?"

"You know which one."

"You know my answer."

"I want to hear you say it out loud."

"Because," Riley brushed her hair out of her face and looked away for a second before looking back at him. "I'll always have your back and will protect you whenever I need to. And," she took a breath. "Because…I love you."

Zack reached out a hand and gently cleaned the blood off of her face before cupping her cheeks in his hands, resting his forehead against hers. "I knew it." He stated simply and then kissed her sweetly.

"Are you done?" Blazen asked as he, in his small form, flew over and landed on Zack's shoulder. "Cause we should get going."

"Way to ruin a moment." Zack scowled at his guardian, who had a mischievous gleam in his eye.

"You did a good job Riley," DalFang slowly flew over to Riley, landing in her arms. The gash in his shoulder had stopped bleeding, but it was obvious that it was still hurting him. "I'm proud of you." He closed his eyes and Riley glowed red, the power going back into DalFang. Almost immediately she crumpled to the ground. "That must have taken more out of her than I thought."

"She'll be fine." Zack commented as he bent down and gently lifted her into his arms. "Let's just hope that the others are doing as well."

* * *

**A/N: Alright, for the next few chapters they're going to focus on two or three of the group, and I started with Zack and Riley for two reasons. One; because of the obvious romantic element it puts into the story. And two; because I enjoy writing about the battles that Zack and Cody engage in because they're the strongest ones, you can draw it out as long as you want/cant because they have a lot of power to hold. I had gotten the idea for this chapter off of an episode of Shakugan no Shana, so a lot of the dialogue and scenes were inspired off of that. And as the battles continue on, they become more gruesome.**

**And I hope that you guys all know (as this is very obvious) that Zack and Cody are going to be the ones to fight the final FINAL battle in this story, which is why I didn't let Zack fight in this one. I hope you guys liked the chapter.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riley**


	33. Everything will go to hell!

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

* * *

"Rhuben, stay back!" Tapeworm shouted.

He slammed his fist into the ground and concentrated. Suddenly, the staff burst out and turned into a huge metal web that blocked and deflected Jennifer's chains. Jennifer stopped to stare at the large metal sheet of metal. She had to blink to make sure she wasn't seeing things.

"What the-… a CHANGING attack?" Jennifer gasped and then her eyes narrowed. "You must have the element of nature." She mused.

"I told you not to underestimate me," Tapeworm glared. He pulled his hand out of the ground. Behind him, Rhuben waited for her chance to attack Jennifer herself, she knew that Tapeworm wanted to wear Jennifer out so she didn't have to use as much power to get rid of her herself.

Rhuben smirked, seeing the wide eyed look on Jennifer's face. "Scared yet?"

"Bring it!" Jennifer shouted and the two ran at each other, she holding her flail high over head. Tapeworm held out his arm and a large crossbow appeared in his hands, he held a tight grip on it as he continued to run towards her.

Sending out her chains, Jennifer had them try to grab Rhuben, hoping that Tapeworm had been too preoccupied with her himself to react in time, but Tapeworm moved swiftly. He deflected both chains before following through by jumping up and landing behind Jennifer. Tapeworm dealt a powerful blow to Jennifer's back with the butt of his crossbow and drew back, raking her side with the arrow that was in the chamber.

Jennifer was lucky enough that she had twisted at the last moment and got away with only light scratches. "Dammit!" Jennifer hissed, holding onto her side.

"Mistress Rhuben, do you want me to go and help him?" DeathLiger questioned, appearing on Rhuben's shoulder, his eyes narrowed in a glare. "Just give me the word and I'll protect you the best I can in this battle barrier."

"You're fine for now, DeathLiger," Rhuben commented, her mind turning back to what had happened after they were split up from the others.

Tapeworm and Rhuben had immediately realized that they were in a battle barrier as no one was moving and there was an eerie quiet around the area. They had gone in search for food, or for the others, but there was nothing to be found. And just like before, while they were in a battle barrier, they weren't able to communicate with the others to see if they were okay, their element watches were basically dead as soon as they enter a battle barrier. So while there was no one around to help them, that didn't mean that they were alone, and that proved to be true, when Jennifer jumped out of nowhere and started to attack them. The only difference between her and anyone that they had fought from WingzCorp was that she was ruthless and obviously wanted to kill them, while Koto, Reihu, and the others claimed that they wanted to kill them, but didn't show nearly as much brutal strength.

It was then that Tapeworm and Rhuben knew that what Core had told them could potentially be true as well as WingzCorp wanting to try and protect them (but going the wrong way to do so) could be true as well.

But they didn't have time to dwell on it.

Both teens circled each other, making sure to keep their eyes trained on the other. "I don't care who you are," Tapeworm glared, "I just know I'm not going to die today I have too much to live for!"

Holding his hand against the ground, Tapeworm concentrated again, turning his crossbow into a staff, shocking Jennifer even more. Tapeworm was the only one out of them that could change his weapon at will, as he had to use whatever nature element he could to do so, making him stronger than most people would think just by looking at him. Tapeworm turned his crossbows into a staff and by breaking his staff into two, Tapeworm changed his weapon into two blades with a chain between them. He attacked, swinging the swords. The blades clanged with each as he exchanged blows with Jennifer's flail.

Jennifer cursed loudly, already starting to get frustrated.

"Like I said, I've faced up against other elementals before and I'm not going be beaten by the likes of you!" Tapeworm vowed.

"We'll see about that!" Jennifer snapped and let out a loud cry, all of a sudden, chains slid out from under the sleeves of Jennifer's shirt and shot forward, wrapping themselves around Tapeworm's arms, legs, and neck, cutting into his skin and lifting him high into the air. "It's going to take a lot more than that to take me DOWN!" With that, she slammed Tapeworm back down on to the ground.

"Tapeworm!" Rhuben cried for her friend.

"Master Tapeworm!" Ursa appeared by Tapeworm's side and turned into his large bear form, letting out a roar of pure fury and charged Jennifer.

Tapeworm had hit the ground so hard that there was a sickening crack and Tapeworm didn't move after that. Ursa continued to charge towards Jennifer for his fallen Master.

"I don't THINK so!" Jennifer hissed, yanking her chains and sending Tapeworm back into the air, "I'm not one of the lead assassins for Halo Syndicate for NOTHING!" Ursa swung a heavy paw towards Jennifer and it hit the side of her head with a crack, but she didn't fall. No, she gave a smile, on the borderline of madness, and brought her chains back, wrapping them around Ursa, sending him into the ground as well.

Ursa roared in pain, but got back up, his eyes glowing green, sending giant slabs of concrete up into the air, towering over Jennifer. He raked another claw, across Jennifer's stomach this time, and while she bled, she still didn't flinch. As the towers of Concrete tumbled towards her, she jumped backwards, pulling Ursa forward and into his own attack, wounding him badly. He tried to get back up, struggling as he did so, but collapsed to his stomach, turning back to his small form.

"NO!" Rhuben roared.

In a flash, Rhuben held her hand out and her heavy blade appeared in her hand in a purple light. She held her heavy blade over her head and swung it at Jennifer, catching her in the side and sending her face-first into the side of a building nearby.

There was a cracking sound that came from Jennifer's chest and the girl screamed out in pain. Jennifer coughed up blood, still glaring at Rhuben as she felt her broken ribs moving each time she breathed. Both of them were strong, now it was time to see who was the stronger one of the two of them. Tapeworm had succeeded in wearing Jennifer down, but not as much as she had wanted. But Rhuben didn't have time to complain about it now.

Rhuben growled darkly as she faced Jennifer. With a tight grip on her sword, Rhuben was seething as she walked towards Jennifer.

"I…am not about…to stand aside and watch you take my friend away," Rhuben hissed, every step she took had Jennifer writhing and squirming harder to try and get free from the concrete wall. Once she'd seen the look in Rhuben's eyes, which had started to turn purple, she knew she was in deep trouble if she didn't get out of there.

"Mistress Rhuben, don't!" DeathLiger called as he raced after her. He had to get to Rhuben, NOW! Or something really, really bad that she was going to regret was going to happen.

"Don't worry; I'll get her," Rhuben replied in a strangely quiet voice, "I'm just going to finish this." Rhuben's blade sparked with purple energy that went over her entire body, crackling like lightning

"EVERYTHING…"

Rhuben continued to walk towards Jennifer and the crackling aura around Rhuben's body blasted DeathLiger away when he tried moved in to stop her. DeathLiger was sent flying far across the battle barrier.

"…CAN GO…"

Raising the blade of her sword high above her head as she stood in front of Jennifer, even the blade of his sword was darkening to black.

"…TO HELL!"

Jennifer froze in horror as her blood turned cold and the blade began to fall.

"NO!" DeathLiger shouted and turned into his human form. He ran forward and tackled his mistress from behind with enough force to knock her away from Jennifer, sending the two to the ground. Rhuben quickly rolled to her knees and glared at her guardian with pure frustration and annoyance as well as fury.

"DEATHLIGER!" She shouted, "What are you doing?"

"Sorry, Mistress," DeathLiger apologized and smacked her across the face, sending her head to the side. "I know that your hatred for HaloSyndicate for killing your parents is starting to take you over. I know it's hard for you to sit there and watch one of the girls that could have potentially been there to watch your parents die, who wanted to kill you as well, hurt your friend, but you can't let the darkness take you over." DeathLiger stared into Rhuben's purple eyes and grabbed onto her shoulders, starting to shake her. "You can't give up!" she said as she shook him, "You can't give into the darkness! You've lasted this long...don't give in to the darkness. You can't!"

Rhuben's eye slowly turned back to its blue color and she looked around a second before looking up at DeathLiger who stared back at her. She gave a half smile. "Thanks Death." She whispered and gave him a hug.

"No problem, Mistress." DeathLiger replied and turned back into his small form. "Glad to do it." He climbed up onto her shoulder. "So what are we going to do about Jennifer, it's obvious that she can't put up much of a fight anymore."

"Hm," Rhuben replied and stood up, turning to Jennifer. _How was she the top assassin anyway? She's just a kid; she can't even be nearly as close to as powerful as Hayden is. Then again, if you're a regular human, you can be the weakest elemental and still kill them anyway, so that must have been it. She's just a little girl._

Rhuben walked over to Jennifer and looked her over, as she continued to watch the girl wince with pain, all of a sudden she felt a wave of despair and desperation wash over her. She looked over at Tapeworm and then back to Jennifer when she realized that the feeling was coming from Jennifer. She understood it perfectly. Much like the others at WingzCorp, she had been taken from her family at a young age and had been experiment on and possibly lied to. There was much of a life left for her to live, she was basically screaming for help and there was only one way to do it.

Jennifer looked up at Rhuben with wide, pleading eyes and Rhuben sighed as she picked up her heavy blade and lined it up with the side of Jennifer's neck. The two locked eyes for a brief second and Rhuben closed her eyes, turning her head away as she moved the heavy blade to the side, feeling the warm spray of blood as it hit her side. Rhuben opened her eyes and turned her back as she heard Jennifer's body hit the ground.

"What'd you do that for?" DeathLiger demanded. "We could have gotten some answers out of her."

"No, we couldn't." Rhuben replied as she walked over to Tapeworm and Ursa. "She didn't know anything; she was a kid that didn't know what she was doing and was just following orders as she had from birth."

"How do you know that?" DeathLiger questioned gently.

"I could sense it." Rhuben replied with a heavy sigh. "And I know how that feels."

* * *

**A/N: I know this chapter was shorter than the last one, but in my defense, if I had decided to split the later chapter into two parts, it would have been just as short. I hope that you guys like this chapter as well as the others. I'll update again soon.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riley**


	34. A look into the past II

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

* * *

"So I bet that you three are wondering why I've asked you to stay after class today," Professor Trethaway stated as he closed the door to his classroom and looked over at Christian, Reed, and Nathan. The three of them were sitting in their seats, silently casting glances at each other out of the corner of their eyes.

What had they done wrong?

Were they talking too loud during class?

Did he notice them passing notes?

Maybe they just weren't paying as close attention to their work as they used to.

"I'm sure that you're aware that your science projects are due soon," Professor Trethaway continued as he sat down on the desk at the front of the room and crossed his arms over his chest. "But that's not really what I wanted to talk about. I have noticed that you three haven't been doing as well in this class as you used to. Bluntly, I can tell you that I could never get you three to shut up when I wanted other students to try, and now you're just completely silent." He raised his eyebrows. "You do know that class participation is a big percent of your grade?"

"With all due respect, sir, I think that the class participation that we have done in the past will put us above and beyond the minimum that we need for class participation," Reed spoke up. "Even if we don't talk in class."

"Duly noted." Professor Trethaway confirmed after a moment. He took a deep breath and then changed the subject. "So how are your projects coming? I don't think that you've told me what your ideas are for it."

_Well, we definitely can't tell him that we found out about something that the government is hiding _Christian thought to himself as he shifted in his seat, trying not to let his teacher know that he was nervous. He had been told numerous times before that he wore his heart on his sleeve, and he didn't want the whole thing to blow up in their faces, especially if they could potentially go to jail for having accidentally tapped into something they shouldn't have seen. _But I haven't even really decided what my cover was going to be. I should have thought about it before._

"We are researching the science behind the idea of reincarnation." Nathan spoke up smoothly. Christian and Reed exchanged glances and looked over at their friend, but he continued to look ahead, silkily avoiding their gaze. "As well as the psychological aspects of it."

"Interesting," Professor Trethaway had a wicked gleam in his eye as he rubbed his chin. "What do you think about it?" he started to uncuff his sleeves and roll them up to his forearms.

"Well," Nathan paused for a second as something caught his eye. He looked down at Professor Trethaway's forearm and his eyes narrowed slightly when he saw a strange symbol sitting on it. "We haven't really been able to get a lot of answers, because we have been researching many different things at once. To be honest we're kind of disorganized, but we'll get our heads in it soon." He lifted his eyes to Professor Trethaway's and they narrowed even further when he saw a flash of something.

"That's good to know." Professor Trethaway nodded and pushed himself off of his desk. "That's all I needed to know boys, thanks." He turned and walked out of the room.

"I don't know how," Nathan spoke up before Christian or Reed could. "But he knows what we're really doing."

* * *

**A/N: Yeah, I know, a really short chapter. I just needed to update this again, and I felt that I needed to make a chapter that showed the past again as well as hinting towards some of the stuff that's happening in present time of the story. I hope you enjoyed it and I'll update again soon. I won't take as much time as I did last time to update. Promise.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	35. Realization

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

* * *

"What are you looking for?"

Koto barely looked up from the book that he was reading. He could tell that everyone from the BlackWolves, DarkLions, DragonGang, and Spirit-X (which had dwindled over the years so it wasn't that many anymore) had entered Core's office where he had practically been hauled up over the past few days.

"I'm still looking for clues about Halo Syndicate," Koto replied his green eyes flicking away from the large book in his hands. He let out a sharp sigh and dropped it onto Core's desk with a loud thud. "And, as usual, it's still not helping much."

"What we _should _be doing is going out _there_ and trying to find more about what's going on," Kagenui stated as patiently as possible as he pointed in a vague direction. "Or try to help them fight off Halo Syndicate, anything to leave them there to die."

"Well you didn't seem to have a problem with trying to kill them before." Koto arched an eyebrow. Kagenui just glared in reply.

"Ok, you two really need to chill out." Cindy interrupted the two of them. "We're all on edge, but we've known the truth about Core for a long time. Now instead of fighting each other, we should be figuring out how to fight Halo Syndicate and to get rid of them."

Tora sighed as she shook her head, looking around the room at the members of WingzCorp. Everything that they had known before, just to find these people and bring them back to WingzCorp, it used to have a malicious undertone to it, but now that they knew the truth, that they were trying to save them, it just made everything so confusing. Especially the part that she and everyone else knew that they were basically taken from their families and were operated on, just to help a man save people and lied to them about it.

Now Core was nowhere to be found, and they were all in danger of being killed…no destroyed…and they weren't sure how to stop it.

Karma can be a bitch sometimes.

"Really, what else can we do?" Reihu asked from where he was sitting on the ground, his tail flipping back and forth as his feet. "We can either go out and get killed trying to save them…or watch them get killed." He frowned. "I don't know about you, but the thought of suicide is kind of scary…and I think that we all don't want them to die, now that we know the truth."

The room fell silent.

Koto looked over at the book again, his eyes narrowing a fraction of an inch when he saw what page it had landed on. There was a definition of a word. **Reincarnation. **Noun. _The belief that _the_ soul, upon death of the body, comes back to earth in another body or form._ Next to it was a name written and circled.

**Dean Trethaway**

On a whim, Koto went to the computer and turned it on, his nails clicking against the keys as he typed the name into the Google Search Bar.

"What?" Caos asked when he noticed Koto's urgency.

"I think…I've found something…" Koto replied and pushed the book over towards the edge of the desk. Shadow was the first one to reach it; he moved his hair out of his face and picked up the book, reading it himself.

"So?" he questioned.

"Aha!" Koto cried. If he wasn't so shocked, he would have started to smile. _Finally, we figured something out, now we can use this…and probably get rid of Zhane forever…I can't believe this. _"Look at this." He turned the computer screen around and studied everyone's faces as they looked at the picture. The way that their eyes widened or their bodies stiffened he could tell that they saw what he saw. It was a picture of Dean Trethaway…but he looked very similar to Zhane.

"Zhane's body is just a puppet," Koto explained as he processed the information himself. "There's an elemental, a really old one that is using his body."

"Meaning," Reihu slowly nodded as he understood what Koto was trying to say. "That an elemental from a long time ago, probably from when they first shown their existence in the human world, is a reincarnate and at one point had used Dean Trethaway…and when Dean died he either was born straight into Zhane or into some other people before getting to Zhane."

"Exactly."

"We have to go find Zack, Cody, and them." Tori stated, her eyes growing wide. "And I mean, like, _now_!"

* * *

**A/N: Sorry guys, this was originally supposed to be a longer chapter, but then I had so much to do today, I'm going to be out of the house almost all day tomorrow, so the next time I'll be able to update things will probably be Tuesday, so this is why this chapter is so short.**

**Other than that, I have some news. Originally, I was thinking of not having this story exceed 50 chapters and right now I have realized that this story CAN'T finish in that time since I haven't even really gotten to the big battle yet and there's still some many things from the past that you have to see as well as dealing with the battles they have now and them finding out everything with Halo Syndicate. So I have decided to write this story until I feel that it comes to an end, so I don't know how many chapters it's going to be.**

**I hope you guys enjoy it anyway and I'll update again soon.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	36. A look into the past III

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

* * *

"So what you're telling me is that you think that there is a certain way to tell who is an elemental and who isn't?" Christian asked as he watched hotdog vendor spread mustard on his hot-dog. "Like, there's some sort of a tattoo that they each have?"

"I didn't say it was a tattoo," Nathan commented as he crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for Reed and Christian to finish getting their lunch. "I just said that there was a mark on his arm."

"And what makes you think that Professor Trethaway is an elemental?" Reed asked as he grabbed his hotdog and took a large bite. "I mean, because it can't be the way that he seems to know what everyone is doing when his back is turned. I think every teacher has that ability."

"Two reasons really," Nathan rubbed his fingers through his hair, suddenly feeling self-conscious. "The fact that when I looked at him after I was explaining what our fake project is, which I have to get started on by the way, he looked at me as if he was lying."

"Yeah, then you said that he knew what we were really doing?" Reed insisted through a full mouth. "What was that supposed to mean?"

"Ok, well, I don't think that he knows exactly what we're doing, but the look on his face…" Nathan stopped short and shook his head. "I don't know, maybe I'm over thinking this." He turned and looked across the park that the three of them were standing in.

"I could have told you that," Christian snorted and turned, holding onto two hot-dogs. He held one out to Nathan. "Now calm down, pull that stick out of your butt, and eat your hotdog." Nathan looked down at it for a second before knocking it out of Christian's hand, smirking. "I was going to eat that if you didn't want that." Christian protested as Reed burst out into laughter.

"You know the most irritating thing about you two is that you never seem to know when to be serious." Nathan realized.

"And yet, you're still our friend." Reed shrugged and gave a half-smile. "As for that mark thing that you were talking about, don't you think that it would be a little obvious if all elementals had the mark in the exact same place with the same symbol? The way I see it, it would be in a different spot and have different symbols, probably going along with the element you control."

Nathan's eyes flew wide open. "Dude, that's it!" he cried.

"What's it?" Reed looked startled at the sudden outburst and Christian just looked interested.

"The mark, tattoo thing, I just remembered," Nathan lowered his voice. "I just remembered that when we were first looking into the government thing, one elemental had the mark on his ankle."

"So that means," Christian nodded slowly. "That there could be anyone in our school, or in the world, that's an elemental, but we wouldn't know because their mark could be disguised as a tattoo or it's just covered by their clothes." He turned and tossed his half-eaten hot-dog into the trash can. "So what are we going to do now?"

"We're going to see just how many people we know are actually elementals." Nathan replied.

"I had a feeling you were going to say that." Reed sighed and then studied Nathan. "I think I liked you better when you were quiet."

Nathan grinned.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry guys, I needed to do one more chapter in the past before I got back to Bailey and the others. And while this story is focused on Bailey, I'm probably not going to write it in her POV anymore, but in third person focusing on her. It makes some of the battles and the way the chapters move easier. I'll update again soon. I had gotten a little bit of a lack of inspiration/motivation for this story a while there, but now I'm back. **

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	37. A look into the past IV

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

"So someone explain to me how we're going to be able to check to see who has an element mark and who doesn't?" Reed stated as he scratched his eyebrow, bringing his feet up and putting them on Nathan's bed.

Nathan walked by and knocked them off before going over to his computer. "You're getting annoyed aren't you?" he questioned as he shook the mouse and brought up a web browser.

"No, what gave you _that_ idea?" Christian replied, chuckling as he passed a tennis ball back and forth between his hands. "The fact that he's starting to use his Australian accent again, or the fact that it's a very beautiful day outside, we could be going to the park or into town or something, but instead we're dealing with something that could potentially get us killed." He shrugged.

"Yeah, well, there's a reason we found out about this," Nathan turned in his chair to face his friends. "To save the world, maybe," he shrugged. "I don't know, but you can't tell me that you're not interested in this stuff."

"I didn't say that." Reed interrupted, raising his eyebrows. "I'm just wondering how much time we're going to invest in this stuff."

"Don't worry about that," Nathan shook his head. "At least not for now, for now it's just a project that we're researching…when we're supposed to be researching something else for an actual project that's for a grade." He turned back to his computer and then motioned for Reed and Christian to join him. "See," he jabbed at the computer screen with his thumb. "These two images that I downloaded on my computer, and hid amongst a bunch of files in case someone gets my IP address, these two elementals have the same mark-"

"The element mark," Reed interrupted and then smirked when Christian and Nathan looked over at him. "What? Someone else should have a chance to name things other than Nathan." He defended himself.

"Anyway," Nathan turned back to the computer. "These 'element marks'" he used air-quotes around the words. "Are in different places, kind of like tattoos, like I said before. They could be anywhere on the persons' body, so if we're going to look for them, we're going to have to keep from drawing attention to ourselves and what we're doing."

"And how do you propose we do that?" Christian demanded, crossing his arms over his chest.

"You're going to have to figure that out on your own."

* * *

"Geez Nathan, didn't you ever think that this was going to be harder than you originally thought?" Christian asked as he rubbed his neck. He hadn't had any luck with looking for elemental marks, most of the ones that he had been able to get close enough too turned out to be tattoos, and the others would just notice that he was staring at them funny and walk away as fast as possible. It didn't help much that many of the women he was looking at slapped him for staring at them so intently. "He better be having better luck than I am or someone is seriously going to pay for this."

He shook his head as he continued walking along the streets of the city, minding his own business and looking around at everyone hat he passed. He had just stopped at a crosswalk and was waiting to go across when he heard a voice form an alleyway almost to his immediate left.

"Give me all your money!" A strange man said.

Christian's first instinct was to figure out what was going on, he never was one that was able to just sit idly by while someone was being mistreated. It was never his nature.

"Here, take the purse. Just . . . just, leave me alone." A feminine voice said.

Christian turned on his heel and hurried into the alleyway, looking back and forth as he slowly inched forward, making sure to keep his footsteps light. The man was about five and a half feet tall with short brown hair wearing jeans and a black jacket.

The woman had shiny black hair and was petite, but despite her size, she was standing her ground and glaring at the man. "You got your money, now leave." The woman said forcefully.

The man began laughing. "I don't think so," he walked over to her and leaned close to her, whispering something in her ear. Christian couldn't tell what he was saying, but it seemed to make the woman angrier. Christian moved closer to the two of them, still staying as silent as possible. When he was close enough, he spoke up.

"Leave her alone!" he declared.

The man looked at Christian and snorted. "You're going to stop me?" The man laughed a little.

"Yeah."

The man turned around, making it seem like he was going to turn away from Christian, but then spun around and punched Christian across the face. Christian stumbled back a few steps, caught off guard, but then easily returned with a punch to the man's stomach.

The man bent over, gasping for air as he tried to catch his breath. Using the time that the man was down, Christian reached over and grabbed the woman's arm, lightly tugging her forward. "C'mon. We gotta move."

The woman looked away from the man that was kneeling in front of her and turned to Christian, her eyes still blazing with the will to fight. "Thank you," she said with a nod.

Christian nodded back, "You're welcome. Now, let's move!"

The woman stood rooted where she stood. "My purse, he still has it."

Christian turned around, his eyes scanning the ground, and then moved forward, retrieving the purse. While grabbing it, he kicked the guy on the back, as he was on all fours, sending him to the pavement. Christian shook his head, and handed the purse to the woman. "Let's get out of here."

The woman nodded, "Sure. My name's Kristin."

Christian smiled, "Christian." His smile then faded a little. "I don't mean to be rude when I ask this, but, it's obvious that you're part Asian, so how can you have the name Kristin?"

"Old fashioned father, I had different views," Kristin replied with a shrug and a smile. "It's a long story."

"A long story meaning that you don't want to tell me?" Christian raised an eyebrow.

"A long story meaning that I would like to meet up to tell you about it." Kristin replied, raising an eyebrow herself before smiling.

Christian smiled back.

* * *

**A/N: Eventually I was going to bring in the decline of the guys' relationship, and now I brought in one element of it. I hope you guys liked the idea of this chapter.**

**Sorry guys, I promise that this is the last 'a look into the past' chapter for a while, and I really need to bring this back to Bailey and Halo Syndicate, so things with the others are gonna be picked up soon, or just seen in a flashback or an explaining of events as I bring it back to Bailey, since the story is mostly about her. Sorry I haven't updated sooner as well, I've been so busy it's not even funny. Plus, I've been having problems with my SLOZAC/SLOD episode collections (go to the latest chapters of those to see what I'm talking about as I'm wondering whether or not to continue or just stop since it may be against the rules). Anyway, I'll update again soon, but this time I'll make sure I do.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**

**PS - Chapters will get long again**


	38. Brother, My Brother

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

* * *

"So where are we going exactly?" Patrick asked as he, Bailey, and Cody walked through the city. "We've been walking like this for the past few hours and we haven't heart or felt anything from the others." His face, that normally held a peaceful smile, was uncharacteristically solemn. "We might be headed in the wrong direction, but there might also be another possibility…" he trailed off the end of his sentence.

"Don't say that!" Cody's sudden outburst caused Bailey and Patrick to instinctively stop walking. Cody turned around and grabbed onto Patrick's shoulders, digging his fingernails into the exposed flesh as hard as he could. His hands were shaking and his eyes held a look of pure anger. "Don't say that! They're not dead! They _can't _be dead!"

Bailey stood off the side, wondering what to do. _I don't want them to fight, but it's also healthy for them to get what's bothering them out of the way. We just fought Ashley and narrowly escaped, she was much stronger than we thought. _

Bailey shook her head as she thought back on the attack. Cody and Patrick had made her go and hide, knowing that she was going to be a real target, but she didn't go far. She couldn't, knowing that some of her friends were being hurt, and she knew that Geneva would protect her. She watched as Cody and Patrick double-teamed Leslie, it seemed that they should have had the upper hand, but she was still really strong, proving her worth to Halo Syndicate. Even with Phantom and ThunderTatsu helping in the attack, they still got knocked around like rag dolls. If Bailey hadn't made a distraction with some of the power she had been able to control, they probably would have been killed.

So after a while of resting, they agreed to start looking for the others to make sure that they were ok. As they walked through the city, Cody had reasoned that the battle barrier had been put down or they would have walked into it by now.

But that didn't mean that the final battle was over.

"Dude," Patrick lowered his voice to a dangerously low octave as he grabbed onto Cody's hands. "Don't yell at me, I'm on your side remember."

Cody continued to glare, frustration now sliding into his expression, letting out a sound of disgust as he turned away. "You don't get it." He muttered.

"Guys, I don't think that we should-"But Patrick's incredulous, albeit sardonic laugh, interrupted Bailey's plead for them to stop arguing and back to the topic at hand, to try and find their friends and to finish this battle as soon as possible.

"I don't understand?" Patrick got up in Cody's face, he was still a few inches shorter than the blonde boy, and the respect for him was still there, but he wanted to get his point across and he wasn't going to stop until he got it across. He wasn't stupid, he understood that Cody was unmistakably worrying himself to paranoia about Zack, but that didn't mean that Patrick didn't understand what he was feeling.

"I don't understand?" He repeated, nostrils flaring. "I have a baby brother, older sisters, a cousin, and a _twin_ out there that I'm fucking worried about and you think that _I don't understand what you're going through?_" Now the two boys were nose to nose and Patrick was still glaring at Cody, whose shoulders were slumped, listening to the boy, the fight in him falling away.

"I've dealt with knowing that every day I live I have a really high possibility to die longer than you have, so if there is anyone that doesn't understand, it's you." Patrick jabbed Cody in the chest with one finger. "But I'm not calling you out on that because I respect you too much." He finally gave his trademark lopsided smile, showing Cody that he wasn't mad. "Just chill, dude."

Bailey sighed in relief when she saw Cody gave a short smile back before bringing Patrick into a hug, slapping his back as he did so.

"It's funny how much you remind me of Zack," Cody commented, mussing Patrick's hair, laughing as Patrick shrieked and moved his hair back in place. His smile faded. "God, I'm so worried about him." He turned his head suddenly, as if he felt someone tap him on the shoulder. "I hope he's ok."

"He's fine, Cody." Bailey reassured him, finally speaking up again. "I know he is, he's too tough to let anything like this keep him beat. Deep down, you know that too." She smiled as well. "You'll see, we just have to keep going and you'll see him again soon. I promise."

With that, the three of them continued to walk though the quiet city. They stared in solemn silence as they passed an area where dead bodies were strewn around, as well as places where there were giant holes in the ground. Obviously Halo Syndicate didn't spare people when they were on a mission.

"I think, when we get the chance, we should come back and bury the dead properly." Bailey stated, looking at her feet, the overwhelming feeling of sadness taking her over. "To show them respect."

"I think that's a good idea, Bailey." Cody agreed, reaching out and grabbing onto her hand, lacing his fingers with her. All of a sudden, he stopped walking and his eyes widened. "Mom and Dad! I forgot about them! What if they're hurt! I have to go find them!"

"I know that you want to find you mom and dad Cody, but I don't think it's a good idea to-"

"No, let him go." Patrick interrupted Bailey. "I know how he feels; he wants to be sure that his mom and dad are safe, no matter how vulnerable he's letting himself be." Sadness filled his eyes. "HaloSyndicate could be waiting to blast him to death as soon as he gets to the sky, but he has to go and see them. To give him piece of mind."

"We'll go with you, then." Bailey turned to Cody, her eyes wide, pleading. "To make sure that you don't get hurt."

"And see that you get hurt too?" Cody shook his head. "I don't think so. You two are staying here." He turned to Patrick. "Keep her safe for me."

"Will do." Patrick nodded once.

"Cody, please don't do this." Bailey continued to beg, tears filling up her eyes. "I wouldn't be able to live with myself if something bad happened to you, when you're by yourself. Let us go."

"I can't." Cody shook his head and took a few steps towards her. He brushed her tears away from her cheeks and cupped her face in his hands. "I wouldn't be able to live with myself if anything happened to _you_."

"Well, I know how important I am now." Patrick joked before turning away to give them privacy.

"I'll be back soon, I promise." Cody whispered and waited until Bailey nodded, drying her eyes with her hands before turning back around. Phantom appeared at his side and crouched down; holding his wings out so Cody could climb on. "Give me two hours, if I'm not back, go on ahead and find the others." With that, Phantom swung his wings down and took off into the air.

Phantom raced to the Tipton hotel as fast as he could go, he could feel Cody's anxiety and that just made him push himself harder. He knew the feeling, he remembered his childhood with Blazen, before they had gotten their animal spirits and before they had gotten their guardian names, before they were assigned to Zack and Cody, they had fought many battles to protect their family. He knew the fear that Cody was feeling to want to get to his parents, but he was also confused. The feeling that Cody was putting out was even more anxious then he had ever felt in his entire life.

_In the element kingdom it was common for your parents to die when you were young, you still wanted to protect them, but you had to get ready for the fact that you may be on your own for a while. _Phantom thought to himself as he recognized the large hotel. _But what Cody is feeling…it's much stronger than anything that I have ever felt before. Maybe having parents as a human is different than as a guardian._

"Land on the roof, Phantom, we can go in through there without having to get stopped by everyone else." Cody instructed. In response, Phantom banked to the right and started to lower to the roof. "Be on your toes, it seems that the Tipton is still standing and is unharmed, as is with most of this part of the city," he looked around, his observation making him nervous. "But we can't be sure."

"Of course Master Cody." Phantom landed on the room and turned to his small form and flew up onto Cody's shoulder. He cocked his head to the side. "How are you going to get into the Tipton if we're on the roof, I'm sure the door is locked."

"Zack and I had made a set of keys to get up here whenever we wanted," Cody explained as he walked over to the door on the roof and jumped up, grabbing onto the ledge that was above the door. He moved his left hand over and grabbed onto a key before letting go and landing on his feet. "We stole it from Moseby of course, but the view was so incredible from up here we didn't really feel any guilt from it."

Phantom noticed the sad smile on his master's face. "You really missed it didn't you?"

"Yeah," Cody let out a heavy sigh. "Back when life was easy." His expression became apathetic and he put the key in the lock and opened the door, sliding inside and gently closing it behind him, so it wouldn't slam, and then headed down to the 23rd floor.

As Cody went, he had a feeling of warmth start in his chest and then through the rest of his body. He started running as fast as he could, causing Phantom to grip his talons tightly into Cody's shoulders so he wouldn't get knocked off. Cody's breathing was ragged and his blood was pounding in his ears, but he didn't let up.

_I have to know _he thought to himself as he continued to run. _Is it really him?_

As Cody arrived on the 23rd floor, he ran towards his room, only realizing, seconds before he collided with him, that there was another person running up the hallway. Cody stumbled back for a second; quickly regaining his balance, and looked up to see his mirror image staring back at him.

Zack.

Without hesitating, Cody threw his arms around his brother and hugged him tightly, relishing in the feeling that Zack was hugging him back just as tightly…

* * *

**A/N: **Review Replies

Owlhero: Yeah, I wanted a wanted to show a way that Reed, Christian, and Kristine, were obviously related to the Jacksons and Crystal. I think that I showed that in a simple way for the last chapter, but in other chapters about the past you'll see it better and in more subtle ways. And of course it would be too obvious/easy if the element marks were in the same place for every person.

DarkElement-Jackson-Fan: Thanks for the support, Cody!

Tiger002: I hope you don't mind another evil cliffhanger now that you're all caught up! Haha I'm glad that you're enjoying the story and I will update again soon so you don't have to wait so long.

SLOD-Lvr: Don't worry; you're going to see Ruriko soon.

Dawn: Now you don't have to wait as long! ;)

MysticMelody101: Yep, it's his future wife. Glad you're enjoying it.

**I had a really great idea for this chapter in my head, but for some reason, when I was writing it, it didn't come out the way I wanted it to. The confrontation with Patrick and Cody did, as well as Zack and Cody meeting up. But the way that I got there didn't seem great to me, but I like it for now.**

**But, I have an announcement. This story isn't going to be 50 chapters, it's going to go until I feel that the story has fully completed, the cool part is, I already have the final battle and the final chapters (there's a epilogue) of the story written out, it's only the matter of getting there that's the thing. Haha. I also have a good idea for a new elemental story that I'm going to do after this one is over and it will be just as cool as this one. Hahaha**

**Please review, constructive criticism is welcome, tell me what you guys think about the pace of the story as well. Would you like to see more parts of the past (with Christian, Reed, and Nathan, which is important) as parts of chapters or a whole chapter by itself. More questions will be answered soon.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	39. Relief

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

* * *

"Cody, you're squeezing a little too tight there," Zack winced as Cody's hug intensified. "Dude, my head is going to pop if you don't let go soon."

"Wouldn't that be interesting," Blazen commented as he flew to the ground and hopped next to Phantom, lightly nuzzling his brother. "That way we can tell if he actually has a brain." If it was possible for Phantom to smile, as he was still in his small form, he would have. But Phantom's eyes sparkled, showing Blazen that he was just as happy to see his brother, nuzzling him back.

"Thanks for that," Zack looked down at his guardian with distaste in his eyes before he turned to Cody and grabbed onto his shoulders, squeezing gently. "Dude, I'm glad that you're ok," he paused, a grin stretching across his face. "Although I would have known if you weren't, and definitely would have come back and saved you, like I always need to do."

"You don't always need to save me," Cody replied, his shoulders tensing and his eyes narrowing. "I can take care of myself." Zack shot him a look, if possible, his smile growing wider. "Shut up."

"What happened to you guys?" Zack changed the subject. "I know that we were all separated, Hayden came after me and Riley, but we took care of him." A bitter edge crept into his tone, but his expression stayed the same. His blue eyes were wide and searching Cody's as if he was trying to find something in him.

"Bailey, Patrick, and I were blasted to basically the outskirts of the city," Cody ran a hand through his hair, fatigue suddenly settling over him. "And Leslie attacked us." He shook his head. "She was much stronger than we thought, probably Zhane's go-to-girl," Cody added as an afterthought. "Patrick, ThunderTatsu, Phantom, and I could hardly keep up with her and I know that if she got the chance we would have probably been destroyed. But Bailey used her powers as a distraction and we barely got away." He shook his head, his blond tresses flying into his face and hiding his eyes as he looked at his feet. "It was weird, while we were fighting, I kept getting this feeling, that everything was hopeless, that we weren't going to defeat her. I couldn't even feel your presence."

"That's what really caused him to sink into some sort of depression," Phantom added. "Bailey and Patrick got him out of there fast enough, but he was still ranting and raving, before he remembered that we never checked on your mom and dad."

Zack looked away from Phantom and then looked up at Cody, his eyes narrowing as he did so. "I thought Halo Syndicate was already creepy, but Zhane really just got upgraded to a weirdo."

"What do you mean?" For being so smart, Cody wasn't following.

"That was his plan," Zack explained patiently. "He wanted us to be split apart, knowing that it would be harder for us to concentrate on our fighting when we all weren't together, knowing that each other were safe. I bet he also knows that you and me, we seem to be stronger when we're together." He rubbed his chin.

"And because he has powers that we've never seen before, maybe he's able to tap into your thoughts and make you feel that everything is hopeless," Blazen added. "And if you think that the fight is hopeless, you won't try as hard to beat him and will be easier to kill."

"But then why wouldn't it affect Patrick or Bailey?" Cody asked, suddenly feeling annoyed that Zack had all the answers and he didn't.

"Well, Bailey also has different powers that we don't know about," Zack reasoned. "And Patrick, well, not as badly as Rhuben, he has to fight the darkness inside him and he's probably so used to it that the feeling of despair and hopelessness never got to him."

"Hm," Cody shook his head. There were so many things that he had to think about, it was hard for him to keep it all straight. Some of his thoughts had definite precedence over the others, but at that moment, it didn't seem to matter. He lifted his head, his eyes holding hope. "Have you run into any of the others?"

"No," Zack shook his head. "Although we would know if there was something wrong with them." Zack looked down at his watch, his eyebrows suddenly coming together. "Maybe…" he brought the watch up to his mouth and pressed a button on the side. "Can anyone hear me?"

There was silence.

Silence…

Until.

"Yeah, Rhu and I can hear you." Tapeworm's voice replied.

The relief that Zack and Cody felt at that moment was indescribable. Zack tilted his head back until it was resting against the wall behind him and he grinned like a moron, as if he had just been told that he had won a million dollars. Cody almost fell to his knees, tears of happiness welled up in his eyes and he quickly wiped them away. Their friends were ok and that was all that they needed to know. For the moment.

"Same here," Max's voice then came up. "Crystal, Noah, and Sydney are with me."

"Loud and clear," That was Patrick's voice. "Bailey's good too." He paused. "Is Riley with any of you?" The twins could hear the anxiety in his voice. So far he knew that three of his other siblings, and his cousin, were safe, but he wasn't sure about his eldest sister.

"Riley's good," Zack shocked Cody as he responded. "She's in an empty hotel room sleeping." Cody shot him a look when he heard an unfamiliar edge to his brother's voice, but Zack ignored him. "So the battle barrier must be down, Cody and I are at the Tipton, if you guys can make it here, try to do so and find an empty room to sleep. It seems that the Tipton is going to be ok for a while, not much of the city seems to have been destroyed, though."

"When you get a chance," Cody brought his watch up to his mouth. "Check the news, so we can see what the reports are saying. IF we're lucky, no one has really caught wind of this." He paused. "If not…"

"We read you." Sydney replied. Cody didn't need to finish his sentence. They had thought about it a lot, what would happen if the media caught on about the elementals. Well, now it was starting to happen and they were going to have to deal with it. "We'll be there as soon as we can."

"Julius and Maddie didn't answer," Cody murmured as he lowered his arm. "I hope they went to get help or just don't have their watches on them."

"I'm sure they're fine," But Zack didn't sound convinced himself. "Hayden's dead," the sudden sentence caused Cody to whip his head towards his brother, his eyes widening. "He went after me, somehow he got my sword." Finally, a different emotion came onto his face as his hands clenched into his fists and he clenched his jaw. "Riley attacked him, and he somehow made it that whenever her chain sickle would hit my sword, it would hurt her." After a few moments of shaking, Zack slowly calmed down. "But we don't have to worry about him anymore, he's dead. Riley killed him."

"…There's something that you're not telling me." Cody reasoned after a moment of studying his brother intently. This was his twin, the boy that he was born with, whom he had grown up with, and recognized ever slight change in his demeanor that told something about him that no one else could see. "What is it?"

Zack stayed silent, as if he was trying to figure out what to say, but he just pressed his lips firmly together and then shook his head. "It's not important." He replied.

_I guess he's right_ Cody thought to himself. _Right now, there's nothing more important than making sure that mom and dad are ok. _He suddenly stumbled a little, seeming to be off balance. "After we check on mom and dad," he breathed. "We should check on the SS Tipton." He swallowed thickly, not wanting to think about the possible fate of the boat. "We owe it to them."

Zack nodded.

He then turned around and looked at the numbers on the door to the suite 2330.

Cody moved next to him, and noticing Zack's hesitation, nodded encouragingly. Blazen and Phantom flew up to their respective Master's shoulder and waited.

Zack took another deep breath, reached out, grabbed the door handle, turned it, and pushed the door open…

* * *

**A/N: **Review Replies

MysticMelody101: Thanks, glad you're still enjoying it.

Tiger: Glad you liked the fight between Patrick and Cody; it took me a bit to write it where it showed their similarities and how Zack and Patrick are similar as Cody and Noah are similar in personalities.

Dawn: Yeah, the Tipton hotel and the SS Tipton are major parts of the story, although right now it seems that the story is just jumping around.

SLOD-Lvr: I'm glad I did too, thanks!

: Yeah, although the story is generally based on Bailey, she, Zack, and Cody are the main characters of the story, so that's why it equally shows chapters focused on her and focused on them.

DarkElement-Jackson-Fan: Keep watching for updates and I hope I keep you entertained until the story is over!

**I hope that you guys liked the chapter. Keep in mind that chapters are long/short depending on how I feel that it should go as chapters to books are equivalent to scenes to movies, they can be as long or short as it wants as long as it gets the point across. Next chapter you see Carey and Kurt, and then it goes back to Bailey and the others. Don't worry; Koto and the rest of WingzCorp will show up again soon as well as there being other chapters about Core (Nathan), Christian, and Reed.  
**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	40. Reunited

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

* * *

Zack took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

Cody stepped up behind his brother and the two quietly edged into the apartment, gently closing the door behind them. As soon as they were inside, the memories came flooding back. The times where they would practically destroy the suite as they were wrestling, the time where they tried to capture the million dollar kiss while Maddie was babysitting them, and of course, all of the times that they had annoyed Mr. Moseby to no-end. Those memories and more came back as soon as they got a good look at the apartment.

"Why's it so dark?" Blazen asked, looking around, his eyes focusing to the dimness of the lights quickly. "I don't like the dark."

"That must be from the many times that you were shoved under Zack's bed to hide from his mom." Phantom reasoned as he looked around too. "It doesn't look that different."

"I hope mom's ok." Cody whispered.

"I'm sure she's fine," Zack replied, trying to stay tough, but his voice quivered as he said it, and Cody could tell that he was just as worried. "I'm sure she's fine." He repeated, more for himself than for Cody. He turned around to look at his brother. "But let's just…check to make sure that everything's ok."

"Good idea." Cody agreed and, for whatever reason, he couldn't even figure it out himself, he turned and went to the refrigerator. Pulling the door open, Cody let out a sigh of relief when he saw some dishes labeled with dates to eat them; they were recent, so that meant that she was still there.

Cody looked over the food, acutely aware that his stomach was growling. It occurred to him then that none of them had eaten or bathed properly for a long time and being in the suite, he would be able to take advantage of that. Without thinking, Cody grabbed one of the containers and ripped open the lid, licking his lips when he saw that it was spaghetti. Hopefully his mother couldn't screw that up. In a flash of blue light Phantom appeared at his side in his human form and the two of them shoved their hands into the container and stuffed the spaghetti into their mouths.

Cody only chewed for a second before the bad aftertaste, that could only be his mother's cooking, hit the back of this throat. He gagged, but forced himself to finish the bite.

Food was food, you couldn't be picky.

"Dude," Zack strode over to Cody, obviously having heard the sounds of him and Phantom eating as fast as they could. "Give me some of that." Blazen turned into his human form and Zack grabbed the container from Cody and the two of them started to eat as well. "Dude, this stuff sucks." He mumbled as he continued to eat.

"Who cares?" Blazen replied, voicing Cody's thoughts from a second before. "Food is food."

"Ah, that's what I needed," Zack sighed and wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand. He looked at the container and his upper lip curled a little. "I feel kind of bad that we were able to eat while our friends are probably starving." He said to Cody.

"I know, I was thinking the same thing," Cody replied. His eyes moved around the living room of the suite. "This room is cleaner than before," he paused. "I guess mom moved into our room since we moved out, let's go look in there."

"Good idea." Zack led the way over to what used to be their bedroom and opened the door. His eyebrows flew up when he noticed that the beds that used to be separate ones for him and Cody were pushed together. But then they disappeared into his hairline when he saw the shoes that were pushed to the side of the room.

Half of them were shoes for a man and the other half were shoes for a woman.

"Dude," Zack nudged Cody and pointed to the shoes.

Cody's eyebrows lowered and he made a grunting sound. He was always super-protective of his mother, every time that she had showed an interested in someone he would scare the guy off, claiming that she was only supposed to be with his dad, even though the logical part of him knew that that was most likely not going to happen again.

He had accepted that and moved on.

But now, looking at the shoes and the way that the bed was made up, it made him mad. Here he was, worried about his mom and dad and here she was shacking up with some other guy, as if she didn't have a care in the world.

"Come on," Cody turned and left the room. "She's obviously not here, so we should just go and wait for the others." He jumped and was nearly blinded when the overhead lights suddenly snapped on.

"Zack? Cody?"

Zack rubbed his eyes, trying to get the harshness of the light to fade, and then looked over towards the door of the suite. His eyes widened when he spotted his mom and dad in the doorway. The four of them stood, staring at each other, and then the next thing they knew, Zack and Cody were crushed in a four-way hug by Carey and Kurt Martin.

"Oh my boys are safe," Carey started to cry as she held onto her sons tightly. Kurt had his arms wrapped around all three of them, crying just as hard as Carey was.

Zack kept his face buried in his dad's chest. _I can't believe it, I can't believe that we finally get to see them again, but it may be the last time that we're ever going to see them. We don't know what's going to happen to us in the future, but as long as they're safe it's all I need._

"What happened to you?" Carey demanded, suddenly seeming angry as she held Cody at arm's length. "Mr. Moseby called us and told us that you left the boat, we've been worried sick about you." She started to shake him back and forth. "Why'd you leave the boat? Why'd you leave the school? Why did you run away?"

"We didn't run away mom, we _had_ to leave." Cody replied, throwing his arms up and grabbing onto his mother's shoulders. Carey stopped shaking him when she felt his hands squeezing her arms. She looked into Cody's eyes and then looked over into Zack's tear-stricken face.

"What's going on sweetie?" She whispered. "Was someone threatening you?"

"You can say that again," Blazen muttered and then quickly slapped his wings over his beak. Carey and Kurt's eyes widened in shock. "Oops," Blazen lowered his wings from his beak, looking at Zack, who glared back at him.

"Oops is right," Zack sighed as he grabbed Blazen off of his shoulders in a tight-fisted grip, causing Blazen to burp loudly.

"Ahhhh," Blazen let out a sigh of content. "I needed that."

"How did that bird, just talk?" Kurt asked, still staring at Blazen. Phantom shifted on Cody's shoulder, bust still didn't say anything. "It's an eagle, eagles can't talk." He rubbed his forehead. "I must be losing my mind, first I figure out my sons ditched school, now there's a talking bird." He placed a hand on Carey's shoulder. "Honey, I think your food is getting to me, from now on, I'm doing the cooking."

Carey slapped his hand away.

"Honey?" Zack and Cody echoed.

"You're not the ones asking the questions here," Carey reminded them. She placed her hands on her hips. "Why did you leave the SS Tipton?"

"Mom, have you _not _noticed the death and destruction going on around here?" Cody asked, now looking completely confused. "On the way into the city, almost everything has been destroyed. Buildings are gone, people are dead, it's going to take forever for everything to be rebuilt and-"

"Cody," Zack interrupted. "It was inside a battle barrier, I don't think that-"He suddenly broke off and turned to his parents again." Has there been anything in the news about the city being hurt unexplainably?"

"First, we need to know why you left the school," Kurt stated as he held his hand up firmly.

Zack and Cody looked at each other for a few moments and exchanged a silent conversation. Together they agreed that it was time for them to explain to their parents what had been going on for the past six/seven years with them and their friends. It was finally time for them to tell their parents their biggest secret of all, that they were elementals, there were people out to kill them, and the same people were probably after their parents.

"We can explain everything to you as soon as we watch the news." Zack sighed, his shoulders slumping.

_I hope you know what you're doing. _Phantom told Cody telepathically as Cody moved over to sit down on the couch.

_I do. _Cody replied confidently.

* * *

Riley yawned and rubbed her eyes as she woke up.

The first thing she noticed was that she was in a bed, a luxury she hasn't had for such a long time she actually forgot what it felt like. She, Rhuben, Patrick, and Noah had been chasing Halo Syndicate for months before they met up with Zack and Cody again, and now they had been fighting Halo Syndicate for about a month and a half, the time seemed to fly by. The last thing she remembered was fighting Hayden and then passing out, waking up there.

"Of course you wouldn't remember the one thing that was so very important," DalFang commented from where he was sitting beside her bed. He turned his red eyes towards her and his jaws opened, his tongue flopping out in the only way a wolf could smile. "The thing that happened between you and Zack."

"Shut up, DalFang." Riley grumbled, her cheeks flushing ever so slightly. She looked around the room, running a hand through her hair. "Where are we?"

"You don't remember the Tipton hotel?" DalFang sounded amused. "You only lived here for a good chunk of your life."

"The Tipton?" Riley flopped back onto the pillows behind her. "How did we get to the Tipton?"

"Zack carried you." DalFang supplied, sounding like he was trying not to laugh. Riley moved her blue orbs over to him. "Yes," he answered her unasked question. "I am enjoying this so much." He leaned over and licked her cheek. "But I'm glad that you're happy." He stated gently. "It's even better than knowing that you're alive."

"Can it with the sappiness, DalFang," Riley sat up and pulled her hair into pigtails and leaned over the bed, sliding her feet into her shoes with no regard of lacing them. "Come on, I'm sure Zack is around here somewhere."

"Cody is with him too," DalFang added as he turned to his small form and flew up, landing on Riley's shoulder. "I think the two of them went up to their suite to check to see if their parents were ok if you want to go up." This time Riley ignored the haughty lift to his tone. DalFang looked at Riley's face and noticed the wistful expression there. "I'm sure they won't mind if you go up." He stated gently.

"Nah, it would just remind me too much of how we had to leave Ronan behind," Riley replied as she left the suite and headed to the elevator. "And of how Dad and Mom were so caught up in all of this."

"Your dad tried to make things better for you," DalFang reminded her. "He tried to get away."

"Yeah and look how he ended up," Riley sounded bitter as she entered the elevator and pressed the lobby button. "With curses that were passed down to me and Rhubes and the fact that he's now six feet underground."

"You always have to be so cynical don't you?" DalFang continued, not giving her a chance to answer. "That's one of the things that I admire about you though, you're always so realistic and blunt."

"Most people call that being a bitch." Riley replied.

"Still," DalFang nuzzled her cheek. "It just makes me glad that you came and found me and that you're my assignment."

"I thought I was your best friend?"

"That too."

* * *

Bailey gasped as she looked around at the lobby of the Tipton hotel. Beside her, Patrick just shoved his hands into his pockets and looked around. "Wow, _this_ is the Tipton hotel?" She gasped, Patrick nodded. "And I thought that the SS Tipton was a hoot and a half!" She spun in a quick circle as she looked at all of the extravagance.

"Bailey, you're forgetting why we're here," Patrick reminded her gently. "We're here to find Zack, Cody, and Riley."

"I'm sure they're here somewhere." Bailey said as she placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. She suddenly felt as if warm water was washed over her and turned to Patrick. "In fact, I think that one of them is-"

"Coming this way," Patrick supplied. "You're right." He turned and gave her a lop-sided smile. "You may not have the powers that an elemental does, but you sure do have the instincts of one." He moved further into the lobby of the hotel and turned when he heard the elevator doors ding open. "Riley!" He shouted when he spotted his eldest sister.

"Pat!" Her face broke out in a genuine smile and she bounded across the lobby and jumped onto her brother, giving him a hug. She buried her face into his neck as she hugged him as tightly as she could. "Glad to see that you big head didn't get you stuck anywhere."

"Haha," Patrick rocked her back and forth before letting her go. "Glad to see that you're ok, not that I thought any different of course."

"Of course." Riley replied, sticking out her tongue a little.

Bailey stood off to the side as she watched the two of them greet each other. She was surprised when Patrick grabbed onto her arm and gently pulled her forward. "You should have seen Bailey," he stated. "She's actually getting a good hold on her powers. She really helped when Cody and I got into a bind."

"Yeah, well-"

"Thanks for keeping my brother safe." Riley interrupted, pulling her pigtails behind her ears. "I don't know what I would have done if something happened to him." She gave a small smile. "Thank you so much."

"You're welcome," Bailey replied, smiling back, feeling mystified.

"For Riles, that's a sign of respect." Patrick stage-whispered. Riley reached out and cuffed him on the back of the head. But Bailey's grin widened.

_Yes, she trusts me. _Bailey thought to herself. _It was going to be really hard to be able to fight Halo Syndicate if none of them trusted me. Now maybe it will cause Max, Rhuben, and Crystal to trust me as well. Hopefully they can see that I really want to help, plus, we're all on the same side, so that should say something. And I've always helped them the best I could._

"Hey!"

Riley, Patrick, and Bailey turned around as Max, Crystal, Sydney, and Noah hurried through the front doors of the Tipton hotel and collided with their friends in a big group hug. As the hotel staff and the other patrons of the hotel looked over at them, they decided not to interrupt. They saw a bunch of teenagers, filthy and looking as if they hadn't eaten well in a long time and decided not to do anything to break it up. They didn't want to get involved with whatever was going on, good or bad.

It wasn't much longer that Rhuben and Tapeworm showed up that by that time, most of them were so excited and ecstatic to see each other that tears were in their eyes as well as the fact that they were hugging each other so tightly it seemed that they would disappear as soon as they let go.

It was when Zack and Cody finally came down to the lobby again did all hell break lose. The shouts and screams from the group of friends were so loud that the manger of the hotel had to walk over.

"Excuse me, but you little peoples are making too much-"

"ESTEBAN!" Zack, Cody, Riley, Rhuben, Patrick, Noah, and Sydney shouted in unison.

"Oh my little blonde peoples," Esteban smiled as he looked at Zack and Cody, and then over at the Jacksons. "And my other little friends." He looked confused. "What are you guys doing here? I thought you were on the SS Tipton."

"Uh," Cody cleared his throat. "We had to get off the boat, for uh, many different reasons. You know health…" he trailed off, seeing that Esteban was too excited to see them to really care about why they weren't on the boat. "How's Francesca?"

"She's great, she's at home resting before my shift ends and we go to dinner." Esteban replied. "Are you guys hungry, you look hungry." He waved his arms. "Go, go on into the restaurant and order whatever you want, it's on me."

"Thanks Esteban," Zack grinned. "You're the greatest."

"I try."

Zack led the others into the restaurant and they practically collapsed into their chairs, out of exhaustion and hunger.

"At this point, I don't care what they have to eat," Crystal stated as she passed her menu back and forth across the table between her hands. "I'll eat anything, even if I don't like it."

"Eat as much as you can guys," Zack stated, suddenly looking worn out. "It may be the last good meal we'll have in a while." As he finished saying that, all of the guardians turned into their small forms and ducked under the table, waiting for their masters and mistresses to sneak them some food.

"Or ever." Cody added.

Throughout their dinner there was nothing but the sounds of rapid eating, slurping, and swallowing.

No one wanted to go think of the reality that was their lives…

* * *

**A/N: **Review Replies

Tiger002: Don't worry; more exciting chapters are coming up soon. You just have to wait! ;)

MysticMelody101: Actually, there is a very big reason as to why Zack didn't tell Cody about Riley loving him and it will be brought up soon. Glad you enjoyed it.

Dawn: All will be answered soon. Just keep reading.

: Yeah, there are a lot of questions that I need to answer and they will be soon.

SLOD-Lvr: Did I update fast enough for ya?

DarkElement-Jackson-Fan: Thank you, thank you!

**Wow, I updated faster than I looking over tiger002's review, he gave me the idea of splitting the story up into arcs. The first 40 (or technically 39 chapters) were about Halo Syndicate. The next few chapters (I don't know how many off the top of my head) have to do with Bailey's Powers/Geneva, The element world, and the past (as in Nathan/Core, Christian, and Reed) and then after that have to do with WingzCorp (and how everything ties together) and then it's the final battle. Like I said before, I'm not sure how long the story is actually going to be, but it will be good.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	41. That's who you can't trust

CHAPTER FOURTY

* * *

Bailey pulled her hair off of her neck and wiped the sticky sweat away before dropping her ponytail. It rhythmically swung back to its original place in between her shoulder blades. She rolled her shoulders and then brought her hands up and massaged her neck as she walked in a short circle.

"Now I know how tired the others get when they're using their powers," Bailey muttered to herself. "And they're _much_ stronger than I am."

_Are you doubting yourself, Bailey?_

"No, Geneva, I'm not doubting myself," Bailey walked over to the window of her suite and pulled the curtain aside. She gave a sad smile as she looked down at the people that walked back and forth across the streets of downtown Boston.

_They're just like little ants, _Bailey thought to herself as she watched them. _They're in their own world and don't know that there's something bigger than them, bigger than all of us that's plaguing the world. Does it even come up on the news? Are they acting like nothing is going on? Or is the government secretly planning an attack of some sort?_

"I'm just worried about everything," Bailey closed the window and turned back around. "I mean, we've been in the Tipton for about a week now, and nothing else has happened…it's not normal, something's going on and I know I'm not the only one that's feeling it."

_There's always something going on when the elements are involved, _Geneva replied. _That's the way that the world is supposed to work. The elementals are what make it essential for people to live, so every now and then, something is going to go on, something is going to act weirdly that you have to fix from time to time._

"Geneva, you're broadcasting through me from the element world right?" Bailey asked suddenly, having an epiphany. "Is there any way that you can see the future or see the person that we can't trust? I originally thought that it was someone from Halo Syndicate or WingzCorp, but did you mean that it was someone that was someone closer to us? Can you feel the person? Can you see them?"

"Are you talking to yourself? You know that's the first sign of insanity?"

Bailey turned around and gave a short, nervous laugh when she saw Crystal, Cody, and Sydney standing in the doorway to her suite.

"No, I was just talking to Geneva," Bailey replied, a blush rising to her cheeks. "I mean, I know it's kind of weird for you guys to see me just talking to thin air because your guardians can just-"

"No need to explain, Bailey, Crys was just kidding." Cody interrupted and turned a look towards Crystal. She just rolled her eyes and shrugged, a smirk coming to her lips. "Anyway, we're all meeting downstairs to figure out what we're going to do next and you're the only one that's not down there."

"And all _three _of you needed to come up here?" Bailey asked, raising her eyebrows.

"You never know," Sydney shrugged, his floppy hair falling into his face at the sudden movement. Bailey suddenly grabbed onto her hair and held it in front of her face. The ends were splitting horribly and it smelled a little, no matter how much she had washed it in the last week. "Something could have happened; you're going to need all of the protection you're going to get."

Bailey suddenly trained her eyes on him. "What do you mean by that?" she snapped.

Sydney shrunk away, his eyes growing wide. "Nothing," he replied quietly. "I was just saying-"

"I'm sorry Syd," Bailey's shoulders slumped as a twinge of guilt ran through her. "I didn't mean to snap at you, I guess this waiting has me on edge."

"Well, you don't have to worry about that anymore," Cody replied firmly. Bailey looked over at him. Cody raised an eyebrow and then blinked his face suddenly tuning blank. "The meeting? Downstairs?"

"Oh, right," Bailey nodded. "I'll be right there."

"Ok." Crystal looked at Bailey a second longer and then turned on her heel and pushed herself off of the doorframe and walking away. Cody and Sydney followed shortly after her.

_That's who you can't trust._

Bailey whipped her head back to the door and watched as Sydney smiled, his dimples indenting his cheeks, and waved at her before disappearing from sight.

"Who?" Bailey demanded. "Which one was it? Who?"

But she didn't get an answer…

* * *

**A/N: Wow, 200 reviews, I've never gotten this many reviews for a SLOZAC/SLOD story before. Thanks guys! I hope that you're still enjoying this story. This chapter was kind of short only because it started a new story 'arc'. This arc is about Bailey's 'powers' as well as explaining about more about the element world as well as Reed, Christian, and Core/Nathan's pasts. I hope you guys liked the chapter and I'll update again soon.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	42. Just concentrate

CHAPTER FOURTY-ONE

* * *

"So how should we start this meeting?" Zack asked, leaning back in his chair.

Bailey crossed her legs and placed her hands in her lap as she looked around at all of them. They had taken up the empty ballroom in the Tipton hotel; Cody had given Esteban specific instructions not to let anyone else enter the room while they were in there. For whatever, Bailey thought that it was kind of ridiculous as it was a big hotel and there was nothing scheduled to be in the ballroom, but she learned a while ago that with their powers you could never be too careful with what was going to happen.

"How about you start with what happened with your mom and dad," Max suggested, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. "I doubt that they could have taken it very lightly when they saw Blazen and Phantom talking."

"You're not kidding," Cody said his eyebrows rising as he stared at the floor. "It's been a week and mom still looks at me with this heartbroken expression on her face." He shook his head. "It's not like there's anything I can do about it, we just have to wait for her to get used to it."

"There's something I don't get though," Tapeworm spoke up. "If you guys are elementals, wouldn't that mean that someone in your family was too?" He looked around as everyone looked at him. "That's the way that I understood it before, you're an elemental if someone in your family was before and then it got passed down."

"That would mean that their grandparents or his great-grandparents would have been an elemental," Crystal spoke up from where she was sitting on the floor. "Realistically speaking," she added. "Especially since Kurt and Carey obviously don't know or don't understand what Zack and Cody meant when they told them everything about being elementals."

"Or they know and are afraid of the danger they're in," Patrick added. "Although I agree with you, Crys," he added, using that moment to silently apologize for interrupting his cousin. "It may be that they don't know what to say because they're scared about their only sons being in danger."

"No," Zack shook his head. "You didn't see the looks on their faces, they didn't know anything." He ran his hands over his face, suddenly looking very tired. "If they had known what it was, then they probably would have said something, and I'm assuming that some of our relatives would have known about it too." He suddenly lifted his head. "Wait a second," he turned to Crystal and the Jacksons. "Were any of your relatives elementals? I mean," he glanced over at Riley and quickly looked away. "I know that it will be hard for you five to figure out but-"

"Not that I'm aware of," Crystal shook her head, but looked intrigued. "But my dad did mention on several occasions that my mom could have possibly been an elemental." She shrugged, scratching the back of her neck. "I don't know. There were a few things that he said she would do, that made him think of it, especially since he was researching it so much."

"What about you?" Bailey spoke up quietly, looking over at the Jacksons. "We know that your dad was researching elementals and all of that stuff, but did your mother have any powers?"

"No," Noah shook his head. "That much I know for sure, 'cause I can never remember if she had a element mark. And like Crystie said, dad was researching it, so we know that it wasn't him."

"I think that we're thinking too far into the past," Sydney spoke up. He was sitting on his chair, kicking his legs back and forth. "And that will just cause us to keep going around in circles."

"So what do you propose?" Rhuben turned to her baby brother, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I figured it would be obvious," Sydney replied with a one-armed shrug.

Bailey narrowed her eyes a little as she looked at him. _He looks a little smug_ she thought to herself. _A little too smug, like there's something that he's not telling us. _As soon as the thought left her head, Bailey rolled her eyes. _Duh, Bailey, it makes sense, he's the genius and his laptop is like glued to his hip. Everything in his laptop and maybe Crystal's is what we know about elementals. Syd's is stored with the information about our…their energy levels and Crystal's is filled with Christian's research and the research she conducted. _

Sydney nodded over towards Bailey, causing her to sit upright, her eyes widening slightly when all eyes turned to her. "Me?" She squeaked, pointing to herself.

"Yes," Sydney nodded. "If you can concentrate hard enough, maybe you will be able to get Geneva to help us. She uses you as a medium, and she's been in the elemental world for years," he shrugged again. "We don't even know if she could die. If we talk to her and even see what our guardians possibly know, then it will bring us one step closer to figuring everything out."

"Or we could not and say we did," Bailey replied, sounding nervous. "I mean, I don't even know how to do what you just said. Why don't we just ask your guardians first?"

"You're going to have to try, Bailey." Cody said gently, leaning forward. "It will be a good way to try and get a handle on your powers, and I'm sure there are a lot of things that all of us would like to ask her."

"I don't know…" Bailey hesitated as she brought a finger to her mouth, biting her thumbnail.

"It's a good idea," Rhuben agreed, turning her eyes to Bailey. "Anyway to try and take control of your powers, while Geneva is using you as a medium is better than just trying them out on a whim. You may have been lucky when you really hurt Zane with your powers, but you're also in danger of hurting one of us if you don't try it."

Bailey thought about it for a moment and then nodded in agreement with her friends. "You guys are right," she breathed. "Ok, so, how should I do this?"

"The same way we're gearing up for a really big attack," Patrick supplied quickly. "Just close your eyes and focus as much as you can."

"Ok," Bailey let out a deep breath, closing her eyes. "Ok, I can do this." She took another deep breath. "I can do this." Bailey's eyebrows furrowed together as she concentrated as hard as she could, trying to remember the feeling of power that she got whenever she tapped into the energy that Geneva gave her.

_Help us Geneva, please. _Bailey thought to the entity that was using her as a medium.

All of a sudden, a bright light nearly blinded Bailey; she grew light-headed, then promptly fell off of her chair and hit the floor, knocked out.

* * *

**A/N: Wow, I'm sorry it took a long time for me to update this; I haven't really updated anything since the end of September. But as you guys know, things get in the way, but I did my best with it, I hope the conversation flowed well, because there are some parts where I didn't like it. But it happens. **

**As for why I didn't get to any of the answers to the questions yet, it's because I wanted to have one chapter about it and I thought that the buildup for it is the best way to do so. And that's how the idea for the cliffhanger to this chapter came from. And I'm sure the questions I put up **

**I hope you guys liked the chapter and I'll update again soon, next chapter has to do with them talking about their experiences with HaloSyndicate.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	43. Geneva

CHAPTER FOURTY-TWO

* * *

"Am I dead?"

"No Patrick, we're not dead yet."

"Yet being the operative word there."

"Exactly."

Bailey groaned and opened her eyes slowly. Once she sat up…she almost fell out of the sky. Yes, out of the sky. She and her friends were floating in nothing, but they were all bathed in white light. Her eyes widened as she looked around, and her suspicions were confirmed, they weren't really anywhere. They were just floating high above the ground. But she was relieved to see all of her friends were there.

"Is everyone ok?" Zack asked, getting straight to the point, looking around. "Is everyone here?" He smiled and nodded to himself when he saw that all of his friends were indeed there. "Good."

"What's going on?" Bailey asked, struggling to keep from tilting over.

"My guess is that Geneva thought that it would be easier to explain things with all of us there, rather than having to talk through Bailey." Sydney spoke up. He shrugged. "It makes sense, I mean, if it causes her to use so much energy just to talk through her, how much can she use when she just moves us to a different place?"

"So what is this place?" Max asked, wind milling her arms as she tried to keep herself upright, apparently having as much trouble as Bailey was. "It doesn't really look like we're anywhere."

"That's the point," Cody said after a moment. "To take us to a place that's in our heads, not to an actual place. Remember? Bailey passed out, and then I saw Tapeworm and Rhuben fall over, then I was out."

"You're exactly right, young one." Bailey turned and smiled warmly when she saw the blonde woman that had become her friend. Looking at her friends, she could see that they were tense for a moment, but then relaxed quickly, the same way that Bailey had when she first met Geneva. "It was much easier on me to try and get you all here without having to physically come to you, so I've come to you in your minds."

"But what about Esteban?" Tapeworm asked, looking worried. "What if he or someone else comes into the ballroom and sees that we're all passed out?"

"No need to worry," Geneva didn't seem the least bit concerned. "Time here moves on faster than it does in your world, so I have plenty of time to answer your questions." She crossed her legs and then sat down on the ground. "Come sit with me." She lowered her arms and everyone else slowly moved towards the ground, as if the gravity was suddenly turned back on. "I'll answer any questions you have."

"What makes you an elemental and what makes you _not_ an elemental?" Crystal asked, not beating around the bush. "Like, what makes us elementals but not Bailey?"

"The easiest way to answer that question is because you or someone in your family was exposed to elements and elementals when you were very young." Geneva replied with an air of mystery. "Let me put it this way," she turned to the Jacksons and Crystal. "Your fathers have both been exposed to elementals when they were young, adding in the fact that they had also had curses casted upon them, it was inevitable that you were going to be elementals as well."

"But why _all six_ of them?" Cody asked, his eyebrows furrowing together.

Geneva turned to him with a patient smile. "Why both you, Zack and Cody?" She replied. "You both were witnesses to an elemental attack or to the existence of elementals in general, and while you were a special case, where you were always deemed to be humans, as soon as you witnessed our world, your powers came to you."

"Wait a minute," Zack looked confused. "So you're saying that just because Cody and I saw Riley and her brothers and sister being attacked, our powers were awakened."

"Not quite," Geneva replied. "Most of that is correct, but don't forget that Riley and Rhuben both had to transfer some of their powers to you so you were awakened. Remember?"

_"What?" Riley asked calmly, noticing the look of fear that was on Zack's face, and turned her head to the side. A smile formed its way across her face. "DalFang! How're ya doin' buddy?" she asked scratching the wolf on the head. _

_The wolf growled happily and licked her cheek before turning his gaze to Zack, looking at the boy curiously.._

_"What…is…that…thing?" Zack asked slowly backing away, hands held up defensively._

_"This is DalFang. You could sort of say he's my guardian Angel" Riley replied mysteriously. She continued to watch Zack's face. "You can see him?" she asked tonelessly, although her blue eyes were sparkling with excitement. "You can really see him?"_

_"Yes!" Zack cried, throwing his arms into the air. "It's a freaking wolf! How can you not see a wolf in this room?"_

_"Most people can't see him. Only…inhuman ones can" Riley replied slowly, gauging his reaction.._

_"Are you saying __I'm__ inhuman?" Zack demanded. _

_Riley chuckled. "Zack, come here" She said. Zack hesitated, eyeing DalFang as he continued to stare. "He's not going to hurt you" she said rolling her eyes._

_Zack inched forward and Riley placed her hand against his forehead, closing her eyes. Zack suddenly felt sleepy and he closed his eyes as well. In his mind fire was leaping everywhere around him. But he wasn't worried. He could control the fire. It is his element. _

_Zack opened his eyes to see his face inches away from Riley's. _

_He jumped away breathing heavily his face red._

_"What the hell was that?" he asked._

_"Your element is fire" Riley replied. _

_Zack stared at her. "I…have an element?" he stammered. "That's impossible!" He spat._

_"Oh it's possible. You just haven't awakened until now" Riley replied._

_"Wait! Your element is fire-"_

_"DarkFire" Riley corrected._

_"Is there a difference?"_

_"There's a big difference"_

"But what about Max and Tapeworm?" Cody asked, asking the question that Zack had just been thinking about. Zack frowned, resting a hand against his chin as he leaned forward, looking at the ground. "Rhuben awakened me and Riley awakened Zack, how was it that they awakened?"

"The same way," Max quickly explained, raising and lowering her shoulder. "Although it was Crystal that awakened our powers." Crystal nodded in agreement.

"So for you to be able to become an elemental the powers actually _do_ get passed down through your family." Sydney explained everything. "But the only way that is possible is if someone in your family had been exposed to the elements." He held up a finger. "But those that are humans and are _only supposed to be humans _can become elementals if they're exposed to elements and their powers are awakened."

"What does that say about Bailey?" Riley spoke up, having been quiet for most of the time. "She doesn't have any powers, but she's exposed to us through Zack and Cody." Her eyes narrowed slightly at the end of her sentence and she looked over at Zack, who just shrugged sheepishly in reply.

"It wasn't their fault," Bailey quickly jumped to their defense. "I was the one that wanted to know what was going on, I was the one that followed them…" she sighed. "So I guess all of this is my fault."

"Nothing is anyone's fault," Geneva sounded bitter. "With the light there is always darkness, and with the good people out there, there are the evil people." She held a serious expression on her face. "And when that person started to take over our world, me and the other two strongest elementals banished him from here. Unfortunately," she looked sad."When we banished him from our world, he went and inhabited a human, causing our world and your world to cross over and things have never been the same since."

"Is that Zhane?" Patrick asked, looking confused. He pushed his glasses up his nose, looking suspicious.

"No, he's too young to be the one that we're talking about," Noah commented, but then looked thoughtful. "But if that were the case, how would he have known about Geneva and that she was inside Bailey?" He spoke to the others. "I don't know if you guys remember, but when we were in the UK and Zhane attacked then, it was like he knew _exactly_ what kind of power that she had."

"It's possible," Geneva agreed, but didn't go any further into her statement.

Bailey let out a sigh and buried her face in her hands. _Elementals, element world, human world, WingzCorp, Halo Syndicate, darkness, and light. There's so much stuff to try and make sense and all you ever get are more questions no matter how many answers you get. If only there was a way to be able to get all of the information that we needed to know._

All of a sudden, Bailey understood.

She knew exactly what they needed to do as well as where to go to and who to go to, to figure out everything that they ever needed to know.

Geneva must have sensed that, because everyone started to float off of the ground again as everything started to glow brighter and brighter. "That is everything that I can tell you," Geneva said, slowly starting to disappear. "I know you have more questions, but everything will be answered soon. Keep your heads up and stay safe, I know that you can and will do everything you can to defeat this darkness and to finally have everything go the way you want it too without confusion."

Everything grew brighter…

And brighter still…

…

..

.

Bailey's eyes flew open and she sat up so fast, her hair flew around her face, stinging her cheeks. The others didn't get up as fast as she did, but they quickly noticed the excited expression on her face and the way she was looking at them.

"What?" Cody asked, suddenly alarmed. "Bailey, what is it?"

"Everything makes sense," Bailey whispered, pulling her hair out of her face. Then she spoke loudly, so everyone could hear her. "I know what we have to do."

* * *

**A/N: ****Review Reply**

MysticMelody101: There's going to be more ZackxRiley coming up soon and the other pairing that's already established is TapewormxMax, as they're already dating. But there are going to be others coming up soon, one I've already decided, but there's another pairing I'm having a hard time deciding.

Dawn: I hope this answered some of the questions. :D

DarkElement-Jackson-Fan: Koto and the others are going to be there soon, it will be explained why it took them a while for them to get to Zack, Cody, and the others.

SLOD-Lvr: The SS Tipton and everyone there will be brought up again, as well as everyone talking about their experiences with fighting HaloSyndicate when they were separated, as well as why Carey and Kurt haven't noticed anything with the destruction of the city. In the next chapters those are going to be explained as well as there being more looks into the past.

Tiger002: You're guess was right, it isn't just family that gets it. :D Glad you're still enjoying this story still.

TFaA: I've updated, so you should be happy. Hahaha

**I hope that more questions were answered for you guys, and I hope that you now get the whole thing with Zhane, if not, it'll be explained even further in the next few chapters anyway or if still confused, PM me and I'll try to explain it the best I can. I hope you guys liked this chapter, and things will pick up again soon.**


	44. The 'Dark Being'

CHAPTER FOURTY-THREE

* * *

"What's with that look on your face?" Core asked Christian as he walked into the basement, looking over a stack of papers. Core pushed himself away from his desk and stood up, his back cracking as he stretched. "You look like you've just seen a ghost."

"I might have," Christian murmured in reply, looking thoughtful. He looked up, his eyebrows lowering over his eyes. "Where's Aaron?"

"He's upstairs checking the barrier that he put up," Core replied and then looked over at Christian. "I find it odd though, he's not an elemental but he has an impressive amount of power."

"You should know, you've been chasing him for a while, along with my daughter and her friends and cousins," Christian replied sharply.

Nathan raised an eyebrow, fully aware of the tension that had risen in the room. "I already told you my reasoning for that," he said quietly. "And I meant what I said, you seemed to believe me before, I admit that my tactics weren't he best, but I didn't want to harm any of them. That's why I didn't allow Koto or the others to hurt them in any serious way, if they were in any danger of doing so, I would have called them off."

Christian took a deep breath. "I didn't mean to take my frustration out on you."

"Why," Core snorted. "You seemed to do that a lot when we were in college together," he waved a hand. "But we can't worry about that now, what was with the ghost look on your face?"

"You remember that night when Professor Trethaway put those curses on us," Core's eyebrows rose in shock for a second, and then he nodded slowly as Christian continued. "He put one on me, that affects Crystal, and then he put one on Reed that affects Riley and Rhuben. For a while, I wondered why they were the only ones affected and Riley's and Rhuben's brothers were not. But at this moment that doesn't matter," he shook his head. "You've said that you've been chasing Zhane and Halo Syndicate around for a while…"

"Yeah," Core wiped his hands on the legs of his pants, Christian watching his every movement.

"You know what I'm going to say aren't you?"

"That you think that the 'dark being' that was inside Professor Trethaway has reincarnated himself into Zhane," Core guessed and Christian nodded. "Yeah, I've had that suspicion for a long time." He cleared his throat. "And after extensive research, I have found that when Professor Trethaway or whomever it was, as putting the curse on you and Reed and I knocked you out of the way, he turned and used most of his powers on Reed, making it that his kids are stuck with darkness inside of them. Why not Julius, I'm not completely sure, but the others aren't going to be able to get rid of it unless they kill the 'dark being'."

"What about Rhuben?" Christian pointed out. "Her element is darkness."

"They won't be as strong as they are now, since they're on the level of Zack and Cody just a bit under them, if and _when_ they kill the thing that cursed you guys." Core replied. "So they'll be strong, yes, but they won't have to worry about Rhuben's powers taking her over, or the others having to worry about the darkness as well." He cleared his throat. "For everyone but Rhuben, since it's her element, the darkness will be gone."

"But the only way that they're going to be able to do all of this is if they give all of their power to the light." Christian added with a nod. "I have some notes that I've taken, that it has happened before, but as you can see, he didn't die before like we previously thought." He fell silent for a moment. "Reed would love to be able to see what his kids are doing."

"But he is," Core replied with a mischievous smile. "Up there," he pointed upwards. "In here," he pointed to his heart. "And in there," he pointed to his head. Hearing footsteps on the stairs, he turned to see Aaron walking down them, his sightless eyes straight ahead like they usually were. "Did you hear all that?"

"Yes," Aaron nodded.

"Good," Core nodded back. "Right now, we don't need to tell the others, they may have figured it out on their own at this point, but I think it would be better if we figured out where Halo Syndicate is going to attack next. The barrier that Julius and Maddie put around Boston should hold up for a while more, but with all of the news crew that's getting information on us as well as the government getting word-"

Christian let out a groan. "You've hacked back into their files haven't you?" Aaron smiled softly as Core grinned. "You know that's what got us into his mess in the first place."

"Yes, but then your life wouldn't be nearly as entertaining without all of this happening," Core replied.

"Or nearly as dangerous," Aaron spoke up. He wrinkled his nose. "This 'dark being' that you're talking about," he started. "Is it possible that he was in the element world along with Geneva, but escaped to the human world when the dimensions between the two started to collapse?"

"What are you getting at, Aaron?" Christian asked, turning to his adoptive son.

"Well, when Bailey was telling us about Geneva, I got the impression that she was, I don't know, like the 'light' ruler of the element world," Aaron replied. "So what is the dark being was the darkness of the element world? You can't have darkness without light, and the only way that they can stay in balance is if they're always around each other, so what if they're brother and sister?"

* * *

**A/N: Review Replies**

Mystic Melody101: Thanks so much! The other pairings you will know soon.

DarkElement-Jackson-Fan: So was your guess right or wrong?

TFaA: Just like with Cody (aka DarkElement-Jackson-Fan) I hope your guess was right, which means that my hints made it easy for you to guess what I have planned! :D

Owlhero: Like I said in a PM, the flashback was from my VERY early story Home Is Where The Hurt Is. But I'm glad that the idea of them being exposed in a different way/being related to an elemental to get the powers was a really good idea, it took me a while to figure out how to make it realistic, so I'm glad that it was. And yes, they're going to have a massive research project soon.

**I'm sorry for such a long wait for the short update to this story, I just wanted to be sure that I had everything straight and that all of my explanations make sense (at least to me) and I'm still re-working some of the explanations as well. This chapter may be confusing so if you need an explanation, just PM me. Now you know what's going on with Zhane and who he really is. I hope you guys liked that twist. I'll update again soon.**

**And if you follow us on twitter (it's just DarkElements10) you'll know that I said that there was going to be some Ziley and other pairings in this chapter, but that has been pushed back a chapter, because this was more important as this answers some more questions and gives you the final answer to something that I have hinted to for the past few chapters as well.**

**Cheers**

**-Riles**


	45. Unexpected Visitors

CHAPTER FOURTY-FOUR

* * *

"What are you doing?" Zack asked as he leaned against the doorway of the Tipton laundry room, watching as Riley lifted large basket off of the floor and on top of the drier.

"What does it look like?" She replied, opening up the washing machine and started to throw some clothes in. "I'm doing laundry," she then looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. "It's relaxing."

"No," Zack laughed a little as he walked into the laundry room and pulled himself up onto the drier. "I mean, why are you doing laundry when you sent Max, Tapeworm, Crystal, and Sydney out to get some more clothes?"

"You never know what could happen," Riley replied with a shrug. "What if they're attacked on the way back from the store and _boom_ all of the clothes they bought are gone in a explosion from a car that's thrown their way?" Zack snorted and she gave him a look. "We've been attacked in odd ways before, it can happen." She paused and turned to face him fully. "What did you want to ask?"

"What makes you think I wanted to ask something?" Zack replied defiantly.

"I could see it in your face," Riley replied and shocked him by reaching out and lightly touching in his cheek. "What is it, Blondie?"

Zack made a face, lightly pushing her hand away. "Are you going to call me that for the rest of my life?"

"Yes," Riley replied with a firm nod. "But it's part of my charm," she turned back to filling up the washing machine. "But seriously, what is it?"

"Well, I was just wondering if there was anything else that you knew about-"

"If this has anything to do with my dad then forget it!" Riley stated sharply, slamming the top of the washing machine shut, to punctuate her declaration. "I told you before, I don't want to talk about him, _and_," she turned and glared at him. "I've told you everything I already know!"

Zack tilted his head to the side and then jumped down to the floor. "Ok, I don't know what we really are relationship wise, because we can easily be killed at any moment and at the risk of being punched in the face…" He looked hard at her and she glared defiantly in reply. "If there's anything that you know about your dad and the past that he's had with elementals and you're not telling us, you're being kind of selfish about it." Riley opened her mouth to say something, but Zack slapped a hand over her mouth. "_And_ talking about it may help you release that pent up anger or something." He shook her shoulders gently before leaning forward and kissing her on the cheek. "You gotta lighten up."

"I gotta lighten up when there's a huge elemental war out there?" Riley snorted. "That's hysterical."

Zack shrugged and let go of her shoulders, heading towards the door. "I'm just trying to get you to relax, if you want, I could-"Zack took one step outside of the door and let out a scream as a large wolf landed on his chest, knocking him onto the ground.

Riley whirled around; eyes widen, and then relaxed when she saw Zack on the ground. "Koto, how did you get here?"

"Don't worry, your boyfriend is fine," Zack said sarcastically, still lying on the ground as Koto stepped off of him. "I just got attacked."

"It's not anything I'm not used to," Riley replied, blushing a little at the word 'boyfriend' as she reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling him to his feet. She stood close to his side and turned to the wolf as he growled. "You turned back into a wolf," she noted. "You ran into Halo Syndicate again, didn't you?"

Zack's eyebrows rose as Koto seemed to bark and then growled again. It made him umcomfortable to know that she could easily talk to him when he was in his wolf form, but there wasn't anything he could do bust just deal with it. Having a certain animal spirit made it that you could understand some animals easier than others, almost as well as he could understand Cody, without him having to say anything.

"Are the others here as well?" Koto let out another growl. "That's good, because we've found out some stuff too," she turned to Zack. "Looks like you're getting that meeting you wanted."

* * *

"So…have you been able to talk to your Mom and Dad?" Rhuben asked as she flopped down on to the couch next to Cody. "Or are they still avoiding you and Zack?" She frowned when Cody didn't answer her, just continued to flip through the channels on the TV.

He had been doing that ever since they had arrived at his old suite. He had planned on going to talk to Carey and Kurt about everything that had been going on. Why it seemed that no one had seen the destruction around Boston, and why he and Zack had left the SS Tipton, as well as trying to completely explain all that he knew about elements and elementals, but as soon as he had arrived at the suite, Carey made up an excuse about the two of them having to go somewhere and they left in a hurry.

Rhuben, having known what he was going to do, had gone up to the suite to check on him, but he just seemed too engrossed with the TV.

"Cody," Rhuben reached over and grabbed the remote from his hand and turned off the TV. "It's me, Rhuben, you can talk to me."

"But you don't know what its like," Cody murmured, resting his chin in his hands. "You don't know how it feels to have parents that look at you like you're some sort of freak, like you're not the son that they had and loved."

"Well, you're right," Rhuben agreed with a short nod. "But I _do_ know what it feels like to be looked at differently when people find out about my powers," she gave a short smile as she reached over and lightly shoved Cody on the arm. "Remember? Remember how you and Zack freaked when you guys found out?"

"Yeah, but that was different," Cody couldn't help but smile at the memory. "I hardly knew you at the time."

"And yet, you still stuck around." Rhuben pointed out.

"Because I didn't want you guys to get hurt, you know that," Cody insisted, his eyes widening a little bit. There was a few minutes of silence and then he sighed heavily and shook his head again. "I guess I just have to give them some time, they'll come around eventually." He clenched his hands into fists. "I just hope they know that Zack and I would do anything we could to make sure that they're safe. If, when this whole battle blows up…if something happens to them…" his hands slammed into his fists and they started to shake. "I don't know what I would do!"

"And that should be enough," Rhuben said, reaching out and lightly rubbing his back. "They know that you love them, but they still need to process everything, give them time." She stood up and stretched. "Now, you really need to get down to the gym," she gave a teasing smile as she reached down and pinched his bicep. "You're starting to get a little flabby."

"Actually," Cody looked thoughtful as he got up from the couch. "I think that sparring would be better, if we're going to be fighting for our lives soon, it might be better if we could make sure that our reflexes and our fighting skills are up to bat with what we're going to be up against."

"There's the Cody I know and love," Rhuben stated, slapping him hard on the back, blinking when he didn't seem to flinch. "Wow, I remember when that used to hurt."

Cody smiled back and turned towards the door to the suite, then blinked once, and smiled when he spotted Bailey. "Hey Bailey, what's up?" He looked a little concerned. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Bailey replied, tucking her hair behind her ears. "I was just hoping that we could talk, about Geneva and everything. I mean," she let out a heavy sigh. "It's a hard burden to bear, I'm still trying to learn all these fighting moves-"

"You're just overwhelmed, don't worry about it," Rhuben cut in and started to walk towards the door. "You'll be fine, now if you two lovebirds want to talk," she ignored Cody making a sound of annoyance. "I won't stand in your wa-"She suddenly stopped and tilted her head to the side, her eye shifting back and forth.

"What?" Bailey asked when she noticed that Cody and Rhuben had suddenly stiffened and were looking around the suite frantically. "What is it?" She let out a huff of annoyance when she didn't get a reply. _This is one of the things I hate about these powers, I don't really understand what's going on, and I need to get the facts on everything._

"_Don't worry, Bailey, they just sense that someone is getting closer to them." _Geneva replied soothingly. _"When they get these feelings, it may or may not be someone that is working with them, so they just have to be on edge."_

Bailey nodded slowly, waiting.

Cody swiftly turned his head towards the window, and he hurried over and pulled the curtains aside. Looking out onto the fire-escape, his eyes widened when he spotted Reihu sitting underneath the window, knocked out. His hand was outstretched at his side, obviously having reached towards the window, to try and let someone know that he was there, but was too exhausted. Cody unlatched the window and grabbed Reihu's arm, dragging him into the suite.

"Reihu," Rhuben frowned as she walked over to him. She grabbed his other arm and she and Cody dragged him over to the couch.

Bailey let out a gasp when she saw the gash on his forehead, dried blood was in a trail that led from his forehead down to his cheek. "Is he alright?"

"He'll live," Rhuben replied as she checked his vital signs. She lifted his eyelid and saw his eye dilate at the light that suddenly entered. "From the time that he's spent at WingzCorp, he's seen worse than this." She crossed her arms over her chest as she looked him over, checking his arms and legs. "Seems to me that he must have gotten caught by Halo Syndicate on the way here."

"But why would they come here?" Cody asked out loud. "I thought they were going to stay at WingzCorp, looking for info on Halo Syndicate."

"That's probably why he's here." Bailey pointed out gently, taking a small step forward. The boy looked harmless now, compared to how she saw him when she first met him. But Reihu seemed emaciated, thinner than usual; it was obvious he hadn't eaten well for a while, not that she could say anything about it. "It's a good thing he got to the Tipton, he can eat now."

"What info do you think they have?" Cody asked with a sigh, running his hand through his dark hair.

"If it came from WingzCorp, more info than you could possibly know," Rhuben replied.

Cody looked at her and felt empathy. He didn't know much about what had gone on when she was in WingzCorp, only what Koto had told them, but he could tell how upset it made her when she talked about it as well as having to deal with the burden of having to live with the memories. He tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes slightly when he saw another emotion in her eyes as she continued to check over Reihu, but didn't say anything.

"Is he alright?" Cody asked again.

"Like I said, he'll live," Rhuben replied. "But if he's here, that means that the others are somewhere in the hotel as well." She scratched the back of her head. "The way I see it, they probably didn't want to draw too much attention to themselves, so they're getting into the hotel in different entrances and exits, rather than strolling through the front door."

"Yeah, I don't know how Esteban will react to a bunch of teenagers suddenly coming into the hotel, especially since they won't book a room." Bailey agreed. She paused. "So what are we going to do with him?"

"Let him rest," Cody replied. "And then we can try to see if we can find the others and figure out what's going on and see what they've found out about Halo Syndicate."

Rhuben suddenly let out a loud sigh, holding onto the sides of her head. Cody gave her a worried look and she opened one eye. "I'm not being taken over by anything," she reassured him and then gave a soft smile when he visibly relaxed. "There's something I didn't want to say, because I wasn't sure how you guys would react, Tapeworm knows, but I made him promise not to say anything until I thought it was a good time, but now is a good time as any."

"What are you talking about?" Bailey questioned, raising her eyebrows. _Should I tell them about that one person we can't trust? How would Cody react? It could be him._

"We're going to need a meeting," Rhuben rubbed the back of her neck. "There's something we need to talk about."

* * *

**A/N: And that's what happened to Koto and the others, now that they're back and now have to work together with Zack, Cody, and the others to try and stop Zhane and Halo Syndicate. The next chapter has to do with the guardians and everyone will find out the truth behind Zhane and the others. So be on the lookout for an update in the next few days! :D (Don't worry, in the next few chapters, it will go back to Bailey and Geneva.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riley**


	46. The Guadrians Talk

CHAPTER FOURTY-FIVE

* * *

"So what do you think is going to happen?" Canis asked as she flopped down onto her stomach in the grass. "Due to all of the other fights that we have been in, I'm sure Halo Syndicate isn't just going to sit around and let us attack him first." She turned into her small form, which resembled a puppy, and let out a breath through her nose.

She and the other guardians were at Liberty Park, unlike the many times that they had been there before, it was almost completely deserted. There was nothing different about the look of it, but because Boston was under a large barrier that Julius and Maddie had put up, the humans inside it were affected as well as didn't go to the park as much. It was just as well, now the guardians didn't have to worry about being discovered by anyone.

"Well, we know that Halo Syndicate isn't afraid to attack anyone when they try to get in or out of the barrier," SilverTatsu commented as he scratched the nails on his right foot against the ground. "That's evident from what happened to Koto and the others once they got to the Tipton."

"So we're trusting them now?" Blazen asked from up on a tree branch. Phantom was sitting next to him, in their small forms as well as the other guardians, who were sitting below them in the shade. "Like 100%?"

"Apparently you don't think it's a good idea," SpiritSaru remarked, curling his tail in front of him. "But it's like what Koto said; we don't really have a choice in the matter if we want to get rid of Halo Syndicate once and for all. All of the information that we can get from them, the better."

Dricer made a grunting sound before sitting up. "I understand where both of you are coming from," he remarked. "With the history that we've had with WingzCorp, why should we trust them?"

"But it's also like SpiritSaru just said," Ursa jumped in. "With the information that they have about HaloSyndicate, it can really help us in the long run, so why _not_ trust them?"

"I think we should be asking DalFang and DeathLiger for their input," Phantom pointed out. "Especially since they were the ones that were in WingzCorp for a while, before Riley and Rhuben got to them at least." He turned to the wolf and lion that were sitting on the ground quietly, obviously thinking about what they had gone through.

"What's the matter?" ThunderTatsu asked abruptly after a second of silence from the two. "Cat got your tongue?" SilverTatsu turned his head and glared at him. "Oh, I get it, you're still upset about the whole-"

SpiritSaru swung down from the tree and knocked ThunderTatsu over. "Obviously you share a lot of qualities with your Master, the lack of tact, unfortunately, is one of them."

"What'd I say?" The thunder dragon asked, lifting his head out of the dirt.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," Ursa added.

"Oh no, it's fine," DeathLiger sounded sarcastic. "What's there to talk about really? I just spent most of my time there in some sort of a pod, being poked by needles and being run ragged, there's nothing wrong with that!"

"Ok, how about we talk about something else," Phantom and Blazen flew down to the center of the circle of the guardians. "Why don't we try to see if we can figure out any clues about Geneva and all that from when we were still in the elemental world?"

"Well," ThunderTatsu scratched his neck. "I heard from my Dad, before we had our animal ceremony that Geneva was the one that held all of the light in the world, she was the one that made the sun rise and set, and she was the one that held part of the balance between darkness and light."

"DeathLiger, your element is darkness, and you were around it when you had your animal ceremony, do you remember anything about that?" Ursa turned to him.

"Umm," DeathLiger's tail swished back and forth and he shook out his mane. "Well, obviously this was after our world and the human world crossed over each other," he tilted his head to the side. "Come to think of it, I think that happened before our mom and dad became guardian as well."

"Could you get to the _point_ please?" DalFang asked his brother, narrowing his eyes impatiently.

"As I was saying, DalFang, Dricer and I got a message saying that we were going to have our animal ceremonies, and then mom and dad got us ready and then we left home to follow instructions of where to go. Apparently DalFang went to a volcano; Dricer went to the frozen tundra; and I went to the one place where the light didn't touch-"

"Hell?" Blazen guessed.

"From what I understand, Hell is usually filled with fire, so I doubt that that's it." Phantom replied shortly. "Keep going, DeathLiger,"

"_ANYWAY," _DeathLiger turned back to Blazen, waiting for him to say something else. "I went to do my ceremony, blah, blah, blah you all know how that goes." He waved his paw around. "But I went to do my ceremony, was told that my animal spirit was a lion, and then I heard this voice, that told me about the element of darkness and-"he paused when he noticed everyone was looking at him. "What?"

"We never had voices talking to us when we had our ceremony," DalFang commented slowly.

"Really?" DeathLiger looked confused. "That's weird."

"Maybe not," SpiritSaru commented. "I mean, think about it, you just said that Geneva is the one that holds the power of the light and all of that, and while I am younger than you, I've heard of the myths of her brother, the one that reigned over darkness and, like his element, was truly evil, but she didn't know it until he tried to take over the element world and she banished him." He raised his tail, as if raising a finger. "But because she banished him, the balance between light and dark went out of whack."

"Maybe that's how our two worlds crossed." Canis suggested, and then looked confused. "How did you know that?"

"My Master is a genius; I think that I would know his thoughts on it eventually." SpiritSaru replied with a shrug.

"Right," Blazen replied with a nod. He then let out a sigh. "Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if our worlds didn't cross."

"Not nearly as entertaining as it is now," SilverTatsu commented. "But then if the worlds hadn't crossed, we probably wouldn't have the masters and mistresses that we have now." He nodded over to ThunderTatsu, who suddenly seemed sad. "We wouldn't have met Master Patrick or Master Noah."

"We probably wouldn't have been able to meet you guys either," Phantom added after a moment. "Because the only way we met was due to the fact that our Masters and Mistresses were all together at one point or another, back home, we probably would have never come across each other."

"We might have," DalFang stood up and stretched. "You never know." The bones in his back cracked loudly. "Come on, we should be getting back, I'm sure everything will make more sense if we hear what Koto and the others have to say."

"I agree," Blazen flew over and landed on DalFang's back. "We don't want to miss anything."

"Uh," Ursa leaned over to Phantom. "Have you noticed that DalFang and Blazen seem to be around each other a lot lately?"

"Yeah," Phantom replied, holding out his wings. "I noticed." He took off into the air, leading the others back to the Tipton hotel.

* * *

**A/N: Wow, I need to write longer chapters. So a little bit of a background with the animal ceremony of being a guardian. Very soon we'll get to the final battle between the elementals and Halo Syndicate. I'll update again soon, glad you guys are still enjoying this story.**

**Oh and the 'person that they can't trust' will be revealed soon as well.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	47. Gattaca

CHAPTER FOURTY-SIX

* * *

"Cody?" Bailey looked around the gym and spotted Cody at the back corner, lying on his back, bench pressing a barbell. She pulled her hair behind her ears and walked over to him. She noticed Sydney at his side, scribbling something down on a clipboard, probably testing his strength and comparing the results to an older test.

Bailey felt bad about it, but she was nervous around Sydney, just in case he was the one that they couldn't trust. But it seemed unlikely, he was nice, outgoing, and really sweet and seemed like he wouldn't hurt a fly. But he was still very smart, probably smarter than her and Cody combined, and that with all of the knowledge that he knew about elementals and their existence, some of which he probably didn't tell the others, it made her feel uncomfortable. Plus, there was the fact that he had some darkness in him and when fighting he could be as ruthless as anyone else.

It was unsettling.

_Then there's Crystal_ Bailey reminded herself as she continued to move around the other patrons that were in the gym, making sure she didn't get in her way. _It's obvious she doesn't like me…_

But is that enough to be a threat to her and her friends? Bailey didn't think so. But Crystal was still in the boat that Sydney was. She was smart, but she also had a bigger advantage to knowing things about the elemental world that Sydney didn't; A father that was still alive, as well as her own computer that had all of his findings and research on it.

Bailey continuously asked Geneva about it, when she was meditating, as Max had told her that if she took the time to collect her thoughts, she would be able to connect with her power more, but she never got an answer. The 'queen' of the elemental world seemed to always be quiet, unless she was giving Bailey pointers.

If she was going to learn everything on her own, she was going to do it. Sure, Zack, Cody, and the others helped as much as they could, but as Tapeworm had said, each of them individually had to learn about their powers and learn how to control them on their own, and had little bits of help, since their powers were all so different.

So Bailey was going to have to do the same thing.

"Hey, Cody, are you busy?" Bailey asked, standing over him, giving Sydney a quick smile. Sydney smiled back for a second before turning his attention back to his clipboard.

"Uh, kinda," Cody replied, moving his blue eyes to hers as he continued to lift the barbell off of his chest. He hadn't even broken into a sweat, but that was only due to the fact that the 300 pounds he was bench pressing felt like nothing. When other humans were around, you had to try and fit in, so you acted like you weren't strong and didn't know anything other than what they knew. It was annoying, but it had to be done so no one would look at you like Carey and Kurt did with his sons. "Why? Is there something that you need?"

"No, Cody, she just wanted to say 'hi'" Sydney rolled his eyes. "Teenagers are so dumb," he muttered under his breath before turning his attention to Cody and lightly tapping him on the shoulder. "You're done for now, but when our guardians get back; I want to do some more tests alright?" He looked at his watch. "Right now I have to go see if I can find a way to turn Koto back into a human."

He tucked his clipboard under his arm and walked out of the gym.

"So what's up?" Cody asked as he replaced the barbell with ease and ducked out from underneath it, wiping his hands off on the sides of his shorts. "Is something wrong?"

"Yeah," Bailey replied with a short nod. "With your parents."

"What?" Cody suddenly looked alarmed. "Are they ok? What happened?"

"No, Cody," Bailey placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. "I don't mean that something happened to them. I just mean," she let out a sigh and crossed her arms over her chest. "I mean, the way that they're treating you isn't fair, it's not like you _wanted_ to have these powers," she looked around and lowered her voice. "You were _destined_ to have them."

"Bailey," Cody raised a hand, effectively cutting her off. "Zack and I have already tried talking to them and they don't want to listen to what we have to say."

"Then _make_ them listen to what you have to say," Bailey encouraged. "Cody, if there's anything I learned from growing up on the farm, it's that family is the most important thing in a persons' life."

Cody stubbornly crossed his arms over his chest. "I have a family," he stated. "I have you guys, and you're the only family that I need."

"That's nice Cody," Bailey stated, allowing herself to smile a little. "But you need your mom and dad, they need to understand you and what you're going through, and you need to know that they're rooting for you."

Cody looked at the ceiling in thought and Bailey watched as his hardened expression slowly started to soften. He really did want to talk to his parents; being so close to his mother and having Zack be so close to their dad, it was just killing the two of them, at least it was killing Cody, that his mother wouldn't talk to him or even look at him. Unbeknownst to Bailey, he hadn't stopped trying to get them to talk to him, so he could explain everything, but every time he tried, the door got slammed in his face and the last thing he wanted to do was collapse to his knees in a mess of tears.

Bailey waited anxiously for him to say something and jumped when Geneva's voice suddenly entered her head.

"_It's not him…you don't have to worry about Cody…he's not the one that we can't trust."_

"Bailey, are you ok?" Cody asked, waving a hand in front of her face. "You just started to zone out…"

"I'm sorry," Bailey apologized quickly, placing a hand to her forehead. "Geneva was just telling me…" she paused. "Ok, for a while she's been saying that there's someone out of all of us that we can't trust, and at first I thought that it could possibly be you because she that it was out of you, Crystal, and Sydney, and now she just said that it's _not_ you and…" Bailey let out a heavy sigh and ran her hands over her face. "I'm just so confused."

"Wait," Cody suddenly looked very serious. "There's someone out of all of us that we can't trust?" He asked and then grabbed Bailey's shoulders when she nodded. "Well, is it all of us or is it WingzCorp too?"

"I just told you everything I know, Cody," Bailey looked around and noticed that some of the other men that were in the gym with them were starting to stare. "Can we talk about this later? Those people are-"

"No, Bailey," Cody looked straight into her eyes, tightening his grip into her shoulders. "I need to know, why would Crys or Syd do this? Why can't we trust them?"

"Cody," Bailey whimpered, shaking slightly. "You're hurting me."

"Hey, watch out!"

"Look out for that bird!"

"Who let that bird in here?"

Cody looked up and let go of Bailey's shoulders, holding out an arm as Phantom blasted into the room at top speed. When he finally noticed his guardian he slowed down as he circled the room a few times and then landed on Cody's shoulder, tucking his wings in against his body, his talons lightly poking his arm.

"Is something wrong, Phantom?" Cody asked him quietly, as he and Bailey turned so no one would notice that he was holding onto the bird. Most of the other men had already gone back to their workouts, but some others were still looking around warily. "You came in here pretty fast."

"No, I was just blowing off some steam," Phantom replied. "Anyway, we're ready for that meeting; something that DeathLiger told us about his ceremony should come in handy."

"We should get going then." Bailey stated.

"We should," Cody agreed and lifted his gaze from his guardian, his eyes locking with Bailey's. For a moment, the two stood there, looking at each other, and then he blinked, clearing his throat and turned away. "Come on."

"_Don't worry about that young one_," Geneva soothed as Bailey hurried after Cody. _"He's just worried about everything that he doesn't have control over. All your questions will be answered soon."_

"I hope so." Bailey sighed.

* * *

"Who wants to start his meeting?" Max asked as she braided her pig-tails nervously. "Apparently there are a _lot _of things that we need to talk about."

"I think it would be better if we started with Kuroko and the others," Sydney spoke up, his laptop ready; poised on his lap, his fingers lying gently over the keyboard. "That way we can see if all of our stories add up, and if we get any new information, then Crys and I'll be able to get it all right here." He gently patted his laptop and nodded over to Crystal, who had hers as well.

_Yeah, so one of you guys can go ahead and use it against us. _Bailey thought as her eyes shifted back and forth between the two. After getting the key from Esteban, Zack led everyone up to London's penthouse suite, so no one would accidentally walk in on them and they had to explain everything that was going on.

If they hadn't already explained things to Kurt and Carey, which was hard in itself, it would be even harder for a total stranger, or one of the Tipton's hotel staff.

Koto growled and then made a whimpering sound as he rested his head on his forepaws, glaring at the ground. Patrick laughed a little bit.

"Obviously Koto's not used to not being able to talk," he commented, brushing his hair from his face.

"It would probably be a good idea if you explained you fight on the way here as well, it will probably help us find a way to change him back." Noah added, looking over the wolf. "Especially if someone got a good look at the gun that Zhane used, that way we'll be able to figure out the make of it and make our own weapons to counteract it, like Syd's element gun that he made."

"Right," Kuroko cleared his throat and looked thoughtful for a few moments. He looked over at Tori, Tora, Kagenui, Caos, Shadow, and Ruliyan. All of them had been brainwashed by Core, and now they were willingly going to spill his secrets.

But was it a good thing?

In some way, shape, or form, Core had taken care of them, sure he pushed them hard to do what he wanted, but he didn't beat them, he fed them well, and he bathed them. Sure there was also that little thing about having surgically grafted the animal DNA into their cells, but they still felt a sense of respect and loyalty towards him.

Was it worth it to spill his secrets?

"We forgot," Rhuben spoke up, breaking the silence. "You didn't know what happened with Core when we ran into him." She looked around at the former members of WingzCorp. "Core revealed to us that Halo Syndicate was there and were the ones that planned the death behind our parents," she motioned to herself and Crystal. "But Christian was the only one that got away unscathed."

"Yeah, we found that out," Kuroko scratched his nose with a sharp nail. "Along with all of his research about the darkness and Zhane and Halo Syndicate," He took a deep breath. "When Core, Reed, and Christian were in college they had come into contact with an elemental before realizing he was one. Their professor, Professor Trethaway was that elemental. He knew that the three of them were up to something when it came to their research projects and kept tags on them for a while."

"So when he found out that they were studying elementals, he knew that they were going to find out about his real identity sooner than he had hoped," Tori jumped in, not noticing Kuroko's irritated glance. "One day he called them over to the court yard, and unbeknownst to them, he had put up a battle barrier. He was planning on obliterating them, so his secret wouldn't be exposed." Her brown eyes darted around the room, studying everyone's tense expressions as they listened intently. "When the three of them arrived, he got straight to his point, saying that he knew that they knew about the existence of elements and announced that he was Gattaca, the ruler of darkness in the elemental world."

"He then explained that long before the elemental world merged with ours, Geneva and Gattaca ruled over the elemental world and the balance of light and darkness. Of course, Gattaca started to believe that Geneva wanted to become the sole ruler of the elemental world; even though they were brother and sister he started to hate her and what she stood for."

"So this was a classic tale of family problems?" Tapeworm asked with a snort. "That seems kind of stupid."

"That," Reihu agreed. "And the fact that they're the ones who send out the messages of what your animal spirit and element are as well as who you're assigned to be a guardian to. After a while Gattaca had noticed that there were less and less people being given the element of darkness and was convinced that Geneva wanted to take over the elemental world." He looked over at Rhuben, who looked back at him. His eyes widened slightly and he blushed a little bit as he sat up straight and continued. "So they got into a fight, Gattaca tried to kill Geneva, and Geneva banished him to a small part of the element world."

"To where the darkness was," DeathLiger stated from Rhuben's lap, sitting up. His tail lashed back and forth as his eyes widened. "He must have been the voice I heard during my ceremony."

"He must have been," Reihu agreed. "Because he is the other Ruler of the elemental world, and because you can't have darkness without light and vice versa, he managed to escape to the human world-"

"Which caused the collapse of the divide of the human and elemental world." Cody stated, nodding slowly. "That makes a _lot_ of sense."

"So he went to the human world and has the years passed, he would go from human to human, taking over their body and making them an elemental, and while that was happening, because the worlds crossed, more and more humans were becoming elementals at such an alarming rate. Because on earth has the potential to be a elemental, the power is in them, but they only become one when their power was awakened either after they were exposed to the elementals or if they were in a dangerous situation and tapped into that power."

"Which is why the only elementals that are known are the ones that make themselves known to each other," Sydney stated, his fingers moving rapidly over his keyboard. "But get back to Professor Trethaway if you don't mind."

"Right, uh," Reihu turned to Shadow. "Shadow, you know more about this part than I do."

Shadow, probably the quietest of WingzCorp grumbled under his breath before speaking. "He explained that he was really Gattaca and that he couldn't have your fathers expose their secret to anyone. So he used his powers to darkness to attack them. He managed to hit Reed and Christian, wanting to save Nathan for last, since he was the one that was the biggest influence on the other two. Which is how their kids were the ones affected with the darkness, why Julius wasn't, we're not sure, but the rest of you are. Core, no one knows how, managed to save Reed and Christian and then all three of them and Gattaca, realizing that he was losing, left Trethaway's body and no one heard from him for years."

"It was then that Reed, Christian, and Core decided to permanently start to study elementals. And when Reed and Christian got married and started to have kids, Core got mad at them, because he couldn't understand how they could bring people into their lives and have children, whom he could potentially put into danger. And that's when he started WingzCorp, as a way to keep an eye on his friends and family, and as a way to track down Gattaca."

"Gattaca hadn't been heard from in years, but when Halo Syndicate started up and Core saw what was happening, he knew that Gattaca was back. No one knows who he was in before Zhane, but now that Zhane has been taken over, he's the one that we're trying to get a hold of and to force Gattaca out of him to fight and defeat him once and for all."

There was stunned silence.

_Wow…all of this elemental stuff started hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago, and it only got brought here because Gattaca thought that Geneva was trying to take over the whole elemental world? _Bailey looked around at her friends, who all looked thoughtful. _And now my friends are all stuck in this?_

She was speechless…

"So then he took over Zhane and got Hayden and the others on his side, using even worse tactics than Core used, and is now trying to kill us all because we're catching onto his scheme." Crystal stopped typing and closed her laptop. "Is that about right?"

Cody looked over and noticed her hands shaking. "Crys, everything's going to be fine."

"Yeah, they will be," she nodded once. "As soon as I go and see my Dad again, I know that he and Core will be able to help us now that we know everything."

"Yes, but maybe we can get it from the source," Zack stated. "Maybe we can capture his henchmen and-"

"That…might not be possible…" Riley stated slowly, gathering everyone's attention. She took a deep breath, suddenly looking even more remorseful than she had ever looked in her entire life. "Hayden is dead." She stated.

"What?" Patrick was the first one to ask, stating the question that most of the group had been thinking.

"You didn't…kill him," Zack stated, his eyes narrowing. "That guy was part lizard, and had the element of nature; he could have probably regenerated himself after you stabbed him."

"Not unless he can regenerate a heart," Riley grimaced, rubbing her neck. "Trust me; he's as good as dead."

"Jennifer too," Rhuben spoke up. She looked over at Tapeworm, who nodded encouragingly. "I killed her too…"

"Why did you do that?" Noah asked as calmly as possible. "You could have gotten a lot of information out of them? Or at least something that could have been to some use for us."

"No, you couldn't." Riley replied shortly. She looked up as Zack leapt to his feet.

"WHY THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT?" Zack shouted at the twin girls. "AND WHY ARE YOU BEING SO FUCKING CALM? DON'T YOU GET IT?"

"Zack, calm down!" Bailey jumped to her feet as well, placing a hand on Zack's shoulder. "Yelling at them isn't going to help _anything_. It' just going to make you say something you'll regret."

"You basically just killed us, anything that we could have known about Zhane and…Gattaca…and Halo Syndicate has just been thrown out the window," Zack continued, keeping his eyes on Riley. "There's no way that he's going to take that lying down, that you killed some of his own henchmen and-"

"They were innocent you moron!" Rhuben shouted back as she got to her feet and got in his face. DeathLiger was knocked onto the ground and he leapt back onto the couch, watching his mistress. "You didn't see the look in Jennifer's eyes. _I _did! I know that look, like there's nothing left to live for. She was begging me to put her out of her misery. She was taken as a baby, not knowing her mother and father, and then was experimented on and tortured."

"How could you know that?" Tapeworm asked, looking completely bewildered. "I didn't hear her…oh!"

"What?" Patrick asked, chewing on his fingernail.

"She must have been able to see what she had gone through when the darkness took her over." Tapeworm replied and then waved his hands when everyone's eyes turned to him. "But she was ok, DeathLiger snapped her out of it really quickly."

"And you didn't see Hayden," Riley added, moving to stand beside her sister. "'Cause if you don't remember, you were frozen," Her eyes had narrowed into slits. "And couldn't get anywhere near him. But that guy was completely psychotic and completely out of control. He was Gattaca's puppet and if I didn't do anything, he could have become so unstable that we don't know what he could have done. It seemed like the only good idea at the time!" She placed her hands on her hips. "So _excuse me_ if I acted a little irrationally."

"Ok, everyone calm down," Crystal got up and pushed her way between everyone. "The last thing that we need is to fight with each other," she looked back and forth between Riley, Rhuben, Bailey, and Zack.

"She's right," Patrick added. "Especially after everything that we just learned." He looked more serious than he ever had in his entire life. "Guys, we're _this_ close to finally defeating this thing and we don't need to _or want to_ start fighting now." He gripped Riley's shoulders. "And before you somehow manage to blow up Zack's head, I think it's a good idea if you go and cool off."

"Fine," Riley grumbled, stepping around Zack and leaving the suite.

"Yeah, I think we all need a break so we can digest everything," Cody added. "Anyway, Zack, I wanted to talk to you."

"Whatever," Zack agreed with a shrug.

With that, everyone started to leave the suite. "There's one thing I don't really get though," Crystal stated as she packed up her laptop."

Bailey stopped in the doorway and turned back, watching Sydney and Crystal.

"What's that?" Sydney asked in reply, flicking his black hair from his face.

"I'm still wondering if our moms were elements or not." Crystal stated. "Because that would just cause even more problems."

"I was thinking the same thing."

* * *

"So, what are you keeping from me?" Cody demanded as soon as he and Zack walked into the gym, glad to find that it was empty. Zack looked over at him in shocked into silence, his eyes narrowing slightly before returning to its normal size. "I've known you for _forever _Zack; I always know when you're hiding something. About Riley."

"How could you tell?"

"I could sense some weird tension when you were yelling at each other."

"Alright," Zack let out a heavy sigh, tilting his head back. "I didn't tell you this before because I was afraid of what you were going to say, especially after I harshed you about Bailey." He looked away and then looked back at him. "Riley and I are kinda…dating…I guess." He paused. "You know if I didn't completely screw that up."

Zack expected Cody to laugh. He expected him to claim that he wasn't telling the truth, or to just vehemently deny it. He except all of those things, but he didn't expect Cody for just smile at him.

"Wow," he stated, flicking his hair from his face, reminding him that he need a haircut. "It took her that long to tell you."

"What?" Zack blinked once.

"I'm Riley's best friend," Cody reminded him. "And when they were still at the Tipton and for a while when we were on the ship, we talked about anything and everything and for a while we talked about her feelings for you." He shook his head. "Who knew that someone so tough was so afraid of rejection?"

"So you knew and didn't tell me?" Zack demanded, somewhat mad, but mostly relieved that his brother was mad.

"It wasn't my place to tell, even if we are twins," Cody replied. He squinted a bit. "Wait, so when did this happen? Why didn't you tell me as soon as it did?"

"Uh, before we all met up again," Zack replied, scratching the back of his head, still confused. "And because I was afraid for our safety."

"Wait a minute," Cody scratched his forehead. "You didn't tell me about you and Riley because you're afraid that if one of our enemies finds out they'll hurt her?" He then gave an over the top smile and patted Zack on the arm after Zack nodded slowly. "Aww, our little Zacky is growing up." He then pinched his cheek and started to move it back and forth. "He's finally thinking about someone other than himself."

"Shut up!' Zack cried and shoved Cody away from him. "What about you?" Cody gave him an odd look. "You know, Crystal or Bailey? Either way I think that you're going to be screwed!"

"Thanks for that vote of confidence." Cody deadpanned. He ran his fingers through his hair. "But I'm not worrying about it now, right now we have to get back to work." He held up his hand and it started to glow blue. "Are you ready for some sparring?"

"Bring it on," Zack replied as his hands started to glow red. He backed up a few paces and brought his fists up close to his face to protect himself. "Just don't think that I'm going to go easy on-"

All of a sudden the windows imploded and a strong burst of energy knocked Zack and Cody off their feet and through the air, landing hard on the ground…

* * *

**A/N: There, I hope that explained everything.**

**Just so you know, next chapter shows more of Carey and Kurt, I realized that I really needed a chapter about it, because I had briefly glimpsed over it before. Soon there will also be a long chapter about Reed, Christian, and Nathan/Core and all of the most important moments of their lives as well as showing the fight of power between Geneva and Gattaca.**

**Alright guys, a few more questions answered, some tempers flaring, and now we have the prospect of a fight in/at the Tipton. Anyway, from the way that I have it planned out, this story should either be about 60-65 chapters, depending on how I do the fighting scenes and the pacing of everything, since I'm almost at chapter 50 already. Woot woot! Longest Elemental story I've written EVER! I hope you guys are still enjoying it and I'll update again soon.**

**So this story doesn't focus on the pairings, I've only done a little bit around each of them so far, but I figured I might as well tell you the ones for this story: Tax (TapewormxMax; which I have to show more of, CrystalxCodyxBailey, ReihuxRhuben, and Ziley). You'll see more of ReihuxRhuben in the upcoming chapters.**

**Oh and hopefully this gives you guys a bit more as to the person that they 'can't trust' since I threw a few hints in here. Of course it's not Cody, but who do you think it is between Crystal and Sydney?**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	48. You make me sick!

CHAPTER FOURTY-SEVEN

* * *

"What was that?" Cody immediately got back to his feet, his hands glowing blue. "Another attack?"

"No, hold on," Zack brushed the dirt off of his clothes and maneuvered his way through the gym, crouching low to the ground, being careful not to get any glass in his hands or knees. Zack shuffled awkwardly over to the windows and looked out.

People on the street were looking around, dazed. Some were screaming so loud it caused Zack's ears to ring. As he continued to scan the street, he noticed a charred car, smoke billowing out from the destroyed metal. There were a few bodies lying by the street, and in the distance, Zack could hear the sound of sirens getting closer.

But there was nothing else.

"I don't think it was an attack exactly," Zack replied slowly. "But I think that, and I could be overreaching on this, that Zhane was doing this to show that he knows where we are." He looked out the window again as Cody moved next to him. There seemed to be more people in the streets. "I think that a lot of people are going to be leaving the Tipton now." He let out a heavy sigh.

"I know," Cody placed a hand on Zack's shoulder. "If it weren't for us coming back here, none of this would have happened." His features then set in a deep frown. "But, I think we should try and talk mom and dad into getting out of here, going somewhere safe. I don't know if they'll listen, but we still have to try and talk to them about…everything."

"Yeah," Zack nodded once and turned to look at Cody, suddenly looking very tired and much older than his 17 years of age. "Let's go." He scratched the back of his head. "We should also warn the others to lay low for a while, just in case. I don't think they would be stupid enough to go anywhere, but-"

"Yeah," Cody smirked. "Let's just hope that Riley wasn't the one that blew up the car."

"Low blow, dude." Zack shot back and shoved him before turning and leading the way from the gym. They ducked their heads low and walked through the lobby as people ran in and out, looking panicked. Some of them were covered in dust; another one was staggering around, covered in blood.

Cody gasped as one fell at his feet, holding onto the side of his head, moaning in pain as a pool of blood slipped onto the floor, from a laceration on the side of his head.

"Don't worry," Esteban cried as he ran over to the man and started to press towels against his head. "An ambulance will be here soon!" He looked up at Zack and Cody. "Oh, my little blonde peoples, are you going to be leaving too?"

"Why would we leave, Esteban?" Zack asked, trying to keep his voice neutral. "I mean, that out there, it was just an accident."

"That's not what the news peoples are saying," Esteban shook his head. "You guys have been on that fancy boat for a long time so you hadn't heard the news. Lately, the government have been finding out about these extraterrestrials or something and they're starting to attack Boston, just a month ago in a city nearby there was a fire set at the mall, many people died."

Cody paled and tried not to let a whimper come out of his mouth. _This was what I was afraid of as soon as I became an elemental. I didn't want anyone else to get hurt, and now…the Tipton is losing its business and Boston is being systematically destroyed. I don't know what to do now. _He looked p and his eyes locked with Zack, and he knew that they were both thinking of the same thing: how many more people were going to die until this whole war was done?

"Now I don't know what to do? Should I stay here or go back home?" Esteban switched the bloody towels with clean ones. "I don't know what to do little blonde peoples…I don't know."

Zack caught Cody's attention and flicked his head back, motioning for him to keep going. Cody nodded back and then stepped around Esteban and the fallen man and headed over to the elevator. "Hey guys," Zack said into his watch as soon as the doors shut and they ascended towards the 25th floor. "I don't know if you heard what happened, but if you're in the hotel stay hidden; if you're outside, stay away from the Tipton for a while."

"Got it," Max replied a second later. "Tapeworm and I aren't at the Tipton, I'm not sure where everyone else is, but the news should be heading our way. We're going to try and get our parents out of here, so it may take a while for us to get back."

"Have you guys had any luck with your parents?" Tapeworm asked slowly, knowing about their problems that they were having.

"Not yet, but we're going to try now." Zack replied. "Later." He lowered his watch and waited until the elevator arrived at their floor. He took a deep breath and left the elevator, Cody quietly at his side. They walked down the hallway towards their old suite and stopped when they saw Bailey sitting on the floor, her knees drawn up to her chest. "Bailey?"

She looked up and quickly got to her feet, brushing off her clothes.

"What are you doing up here?" Cody asked, his features screwed up in confusion.

"Well, I figured that you would try to talk to your parents one more time…" Bailey wiped her hands off on the sides of her pants. "And I figured that I would come by for some moral support."

"Thanks Bailey," Zack replied, giving a small smile as he reached out and hesitantly patted her shoulder. "That means a lot, really." Bailey smiled and nodded back. Zack took a deep breath and then turned to the door to the suite and grabbed onto it.

"Do you want us here too?" Blazen asked as he and Phantom appeared on their Masters' shoulders in their small form. "Maybe we could help take them away or something."

"I don't know," Cody hesitated. "I mean, you're part of the reason that mom and dad aren't really talking to us. I mean, it's no one's fault but-"

"Codes," Zack turned to him. "At this point, I think that having them around may actually help us."

Cody studied his brother. He had never seen him look so hurt and so torn before and that scared him a little. His brother, who usually was the strong one that leapt into things first and asked questions later, was now the hesitant one, not sure what to do.

"Uh," Bailey spoke up. "It may help if you open the door."

Zack shot her a look and she pressed her lips together before turning the doorknob and opening the door. Almost as soon as the door opened, he was hit in the face by a pillow from the couch. Kurt was currently tearing through the living room, as if he was looking for something, and through the open doorway of the bedroom, they could see Carey throwing things into a suitcase.

"Mom? Dad? What's going on?" Cody cried. He and Bailey shoved their way by Zack into the apartment, their mouths dropping open as they watched the frantic movement around the suite.

"We're packing," Kurt replied, barely looking away from the couch. "We need to get out of here before something else happens, there's just been too much stuff going on around here before you guys came back here." He finally turned and looked at Bailey, his eyebrows rising. "Hi I'm Kurt, you must be Bailey, and sorry we have to leave when we first met you."

"Leave?" Zack cried his voice cracking. "Y-You don't have to leave, we can protect you!"

"_Protect us?_" Kurt snorted. "Excuse me, but I'm sure you guys and those…_things_ on your shoulders are what's to blame for that explosion down there." He shot Zack a condescending look. "I mean, your _element_ is fire, isn't it?"

"You think that Zack would go and blow up a car for fun?" Cody's eyes flew wide open and then narrowed in rage. "YOU THINK THAT HE WOULD WANT TO PURPOSEFULLY KILL AND INJURE ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE?"

All of a sudden the faucet on the sink blasted off and a fountain of water came shooting out of the sink. Carey hurried from the bedroom and over to the sink as Kurt jumped back, his eyes widening in shock. He looked back over at his younger son, his long hair was in his face, his teeth were gritted, his face was turning a light shade of red, and his hands were shaking at his sides, glowing blue.

"Master Cody, it's probably a good idea to calm down," Phantom stated, his wingtips twitching. "You don't want to accidentally flood the apartment."

"Why's that going to matter?" Cody spat. "They obviously don't care; they can't get out of here fast enough!"

"Carey, keep packing!" Kurt barked, ignoring Cody's statement. "We have to get out of here."

"Let us take you," Zack pleaded and motioned to Blazen, who had cocked his head to the side, watching Kurt and Carey move around the apartment. "We can go on Blazen and Phantom, they're our best friends and they protect us and I know that they can take you to the SS Tipton or somewhere else safe with the rest of-"

"We're not going _anywhere_ with you!" Kurt snapped back.

"_Quit cutting me off!" _Zack cried, getting even more emotional than he ever felt before.

"Honey, you don't understand," Carey, who had finished turning off the water under the sink, wrung out her shirt, water dripping to the floor. "We don't-"

"No, you don't understand," Bailey jumped into the conversation, moving in front of Zack and Cody. "All that Zack and Cody wanted was to explain to you guys what was going on and try to get you to understand everything that they had gone through for the past few months, let along the past few years. But all you do is treat them like they're a bunch of criminals and you don't even _try_ to understand!"

"Bailey-"Zack tried to speak up, but Bailey ignored him.

"So what you do is write them off and now you're trying to run away from them when all they're trying to do is help save and protect you! You make me sick! Do you know what I learned when I was on the farm, that family is the most important thing in the world to a person! But here you are a bunch of cowards that are running away when they're something that you don't want them to be. They didn't _ask_ for these powers and they don't _have_ to try and save the world, but they are! And if you can't accept that, then you don't deserve to see them again!"

There was a stunned silence after that.

_Whoa _Zack and Cody thought at the same time. _Go, Bailey._

Kurt continued to stare at the three friends as Carey finished packing their belongings, most of the suite now bare. She dragged their two large suitcases from the bedroom and handed one to Kurt. "Honey, we should get going." Kurt nodded and took his bag before walking out of the suite, keeping his eyes away from Zack, Cody, and Bailey. Carey let out a heavy sigh. "It was nice meeting you, Bailey." She said quietly and then turned to look at her sons for a long moment. "Goodbye boys," she reached out a hand to run it through Cody's hair, but she pulled her hand back as Cody stared at her. "Love you."

Zack and Cody stayed silent.

Carey nodded once, as if accepting why they didn't respond like they usually would, and left the suite as well.

"I tried," Bailey said with a weak shrug.

"It's alright Bailey," Zack stated, looking anything but 'alright'. "We did all we could…there's nothing we can do now…"

* * *

**A/N: Yeah, I had originally thought that Carey and Kurt should be accepting to Zack and Cody having powers, but then I thought back on it and realized that it would be a good idea if they **_**weren't**_**accepting of it, because it would be able to mold/characterize Zack and Cody even more. I hope it didn't make you guys too upset though.**

**The reason I didn't make Carey and Kurt talk too much was because I wanted to focus on Zack's and Cody's feeling as well as the fact that Boston is basically going to hell and they wanted to get out as soon as possible.**

**Ok, let me just tell you guys, I re-read my old SLOZAC/Element stories and realized that my OCs were Mary-Sues/Gary-Stus and were so goddamn PERFECT it's not even funny. Plus my writing sucked. I'm so glad that all of the years that I have been writing has improved it and that I now have (what I think) are non mary-sues/gary-stus as characters).**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	49. Zhane

CHAPTER FOURTY-EIGHT

* * *

"Fuck!" Zhane cried, slamming his hands down on the table so hard, it cracked in half and crashed to the ground. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" He continued to slam his hands down on the table over and over again until the table was reduced to dust and splinters. "I should have gotten rid of all of them when they were going to that _stupid_ hotel." He furiously grabbed onto his head. "Instead of trying to turn them into their _stupid_ animal spirits."

He brought a fist up to his mouth as he started to pace back and forth in his cramped room of the warehouse that held Halo Syndicate's headquarters. He was the only one awake, his remaining three henchmen were somewhere in the building. But he didn't worry about that, at that moment in time, he was worried that the people he was fighting against new his secret.

The secret that he had kept secret for a very long time and never expected to be found out before he destroyed them.

_Stupid Geneva, always having to go and do the right thing…_Zhane flopped himself down into the large leather chair that had been sitting behind the desk and gently rocked himself back and forth. He couldn't hold still, his fingers were fluttering as he tried to figure out what to do. _I should have known that eventually they were going to find out what had happened. I just didn't expect it to be so soon._

Zhane looked up as the room was illuminated with light. He looked up through the broken window and saw a cloud slowly moving away from the moon, bringing the mystic light into the room. He turned the chair around and watched as the shadows in the room slowly started to move away. His eyes narrowed as he turned back around and looked up at the moon.

_The moon is a bright light that seems unable to go out…_a smirk slowly started to form on Zhane's face. _But there is always darkness on the other side, you just can't see it._

Zhane got to his feet and closed his eyes as he bowed his head. He concentrated on the energy in his body and released it outward. Black and purple light enveloped his body and he started to levitate up in the air. The energy started to shoot off in all directions, striking the walls and the beams of the building around him as he continued to rise higher and higher into the air. The room filled with the darkness energy and as he neared the top of the warehouse, the ceiling started to crack under the immense pressure.

"Come to me, all those that holds the power of darkness…come to me so that we can take over the human world and the elemental world." Zhane lifted his head, his eyes glowing black. "COME TO ME!"

* * *

**A/N: Filler chapter, I just wanted to show a bit of Zhane and how he's reacting to everyone finding out about him being Gattaca. Plus, I didn't want you guys to go a long time without updating. Next chapter will reveal who the traitor is. **

**So if you're confused, Gattaca has taken over Zhane, so basically Zhane IS Gattaca. Soooo, I next two chapters are Christian, Reed, and Core/Nathan's most important moments as they discover elementals, and then it's a chapter with Geneva and Gattaca and what happened there. Then it will get back to the others.**

**I'll update again soon.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	50. Geneva and Gattaca

CHAPTER FOURTY-NINE

* * *

"Bailey…wake up my child,"

Bailey's eyes slowly opened and she yawned, stretching a bit as she looked around the suite she was lying in. Once again, she felt a sense of loneliness; she had been able to constantly visit her family even when she was on the SS Tipton. But now that she was at the Tipton hotel, and not able to go see her family due to the large risk of them being targeted by the others, it just made it hard for her to see Zack and Cody be with each other as well as the Jacksons and their cousin. And even Crystal had the chance to go back to her father's house and see what was going on there. (Although Tapeworm advised against it, sure that Zhane had a lock on it, in case they tried to go back, so she and her father, Aaron, and Core corresponded through a video chat).

_Mom and Dad and Grammy Pickett and you sisters, they all have to stay safe, Bailey, you can't go home yet. _Bailey reminded herself as she hugged her pillow tightly against her chest. _You have to stay strong for them._

"Bailey, wake up."

Bailey rolled over onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. She blinked for a few seconds when she saw Geneva hovering over her, and then let out a loud shriek, rolling over and falling onto the floor.

"I didn't mean to scare you," Geneva gently glided down to the floor to where she was standing over Bailey."

"That's alright," Bailey held a hand over her heat as it thudded against her ribcage. "I needed to sharpen my reflexes."

Geneva gave a kind smile as her hands glowed white. Bailey felt herself being lifted off the floor and back onto her bed. "Is that better?"

"Yes, thanks." Bailey studied Geneva, if it was possible; she was even more beautiful in person. And for some reason, it seemed to Bailey that she could feel Geneva's power fill the room. It felt like a blanket had been wrapped around Bailey, giving her protection. "Why did you wake me up?"

"I know that you and your friends have figured out about Gattaca," Geneva replied calmly. "I can give you the powers to help stop him but unfortunately, I'm not, and with my powers, you're not the ones that are supposed to stop him."

"It's Zack and Cody isn't it?" Bailey guessed.

Geneva nodded. "They've been destined for this ever since Blazen and Phantom were born, I knew that there was something special about them, but I didn't think that they would be the ones that were going to help me stop my brother." She folded her hands patiently. "But I want to show you what happened to make me banish Gattaca."

"And you can't tell us how to defeat him because the world doesn't work that way," Bailey gave a wry smile as she nodded. "I'd really like to know what happened…maybe it can help us…I'm very smart, if I was able to help them earlier with WingzCorp before Halo Syndicate came around, maybe I can help them now."

"Bailey," Geneva reached out a hand and gently caressed Bailey's cheek, much like her mother would. "You're very smart, and you're going to help your friends in unimaginable ways, without powers. You just have to believe in yourself."

Bailey nodded slowly.

"Alright," Geneva took in a deep breath. "I want to show you what happened."

Bailey nodded again and Geneva closed her eyes and the room started to glow white. Bailey watched as the white light got brighter and brighter, but it didn't hurt her eyes. If anything, it made her feel safer. When the light faded, Bailey wasn't sitting in the Tipton hotel anymore; she was sitting in a large room, probably in a palace.

It was so big, every move she made on the small couch echoed throughout the room, coming back to her so loudly she had to clap her hands over her ears. She only pulled her hands away when she heard clacking footsteps heading towards the room.

"Gattaca, you're getting upset over nothing," Geneva said patiently as she and her brother walked into the room. Geneva still looked the same as she did when she first presented herself to Bailey, and Gattaca definitely looked like her brother, probably her older brother. Like Geneva, he was tall and had blond hair, and piercing blue eyes, he was wearing a white tunic with a dark gray boots. He had a scowl on his face and an air of frustration that Bailey could feel from across the room.

"Am I really?" Gattaca spat as he halted his momentum, watching as Geneva walked across the room to a large fireplace.

"Yes, really," Geneva replied calmly. She moved her dresses out of the way and kneeled down on the floor, holding her hands out. A fireball shot out of them and quickly ignited the flame in the hearth. "It's not me _or you _that decides who becomes what kind of elemental when." She raised herself to her feet and slowly turned to face her brother. "It's _life_."

_Oh, _Bailey slowly nodded to herself. _This is when they started to fight about it…then she'll also show me when he tried to take over…_

At Bailey's movements, Gattaca snapped his head over at her and seemed to glare right at her. Bailey held her breath, unsure of what to do. Did she have her powers while she was in Geneva's memory? Was he able to see her? Or was only Geneva able to do something?

Bailey continued to hold her breath for a few more minutes, as Gattaca continued to look in her direction. But he just made a face and turned back to Geneva, now placing his hands on his hips.

"If that's the case, then why haven't there been any more elemental of darkness and psychic and all of those?" He spat, moving closer to his sister. "There is more to this world than all of the elements that revolve around light. The world can't work without-"

"The world can't work without a balance of light and dark," Geneva interrupted him, not giving him a hard look in return. "I know that," she then walked over to a large podium on the other side of the room, sitting underneath large bay windows. "But I'm not the one that's choosing what they come with, when they're born, it's assigned, and when they reach a certain age, we give them their message to go to the ceremony and meet them there and explain to them what's going on and what's expected of them."

"Do you really believe that, Geneva?" Gattaca asked after a minute of being silent. "Do you really believe that the world works that way? That _life_ is the one choosing their destiny and not us?"

"You don't?" Geneva replied evenly. "We were taught that-"

"We were taught it, yes, but that doesn't mean that I have to believe it." Gattaca replied calmly. Even from where Bailey was sitting, she could feel the cold malice in his tone. "It doesn't mean that we can't challenge it and make sure that the balance is fair, even more so than it is now."

"We just lost a lot in the war and-"

"And we're trying to make up for it, but it's not being made up evenly."

"We can't help that, if there's a flux in one direction, the other one will be long coming." Geneva sounded impatient now. She picked up a large book. "Now if you'll excuse me," she turned and shot a look at her brother. "I have to decide which animal spirits are going to be the ones that these new guardians will take as well as whom they were be guarding over!"

With that, she turned on her heel and started to walk out of the room, the back of her dress flowing behind her.

"That's what you think," Gattaca murmured before slowly following her out of the room.

Bailey blinked rapidly as the room started to fill with white light once more. But this time, when it faded away, she was in a new room and it was pitch black. She reached up and felt the wall, recoiling when her fingertips touched smooth stone. So smooth it felt wet.

Then voices echoed towards her.

_Oh, I'm in a dungeon or something…not a bedroom. _Bailey slowly continued to walk forward until she heard the voices getting clearer. There was Gattaca, whose words were slurred a little bit, like he had been hit in the mouth, there was Geneva, and then some other voices she didn't recognize. Probably some guards. Every voice in Bailey's head told her to somehow get Geneva's attention and to send her back to the real world, but a stronger part of her had to know what had happened all those years ago before the elemental world started to collapse.

"-why you wanted to kill female light? She's your sister and one of the rulers of the element world!" A guard barked.

Bailey peeked around the corner and gasped lightly, her eyes widening. Gattaca was sitting on the floor of a cell, his arms chain linked above his head. He looked bruised and battered, his lip split, but he still had a manic grin on his face.

Geneva, on the other hand, was standing in front of him with two guards; her arms crossed over her chest and looked at her brother with more contempt than Bailey had ever seen in her life. But, at the same time, she didn't look surprised.

Gattaca just smiled back at Geneva and her two guards. "You should know," he replied in a low mumble, his split lip obviously giving him some pain as his tongue frequently flicked over it. "You can't be that much of a tightwad, you know everything that's said or done in the palace."

"Careful Male Darkness, you're treading in rough waters," the smaller guard said as he pointed a sword to Gattaca's neck. "You know the penalty of attempted murder," he snorted. "I never thought I'd see the day that you would have the guts to try and murder one of your own."

Gattaca looked interested, but didn't say anything.

Geneva took in a deep breath and closed her eyes briefly before glaring the brother. "No," she murmured. Gattaca and the guards turned to her. "No, we won't send him to death," she said out loud. "That will cause a horrible imbalance of the element world, we'd need to find a replacement for him, somewhere down the line, if we were to sentence him to death and we simply don't have the time."

"Then what do you propose, my lady?" The larger guard asked, eyeing Gattaca warily.

Geneva flipped her hair over her shoulder, bringing herself up to her full 6'1" height. "We will banish him, to where the last bit of light in this world touches. He will have no power over the guardian ceremonies as well as presenting that guardian to he or she, whom they will be guarding." Her eyes slowly narrowed. "You will not be allowed back into the kingdom, and you will not be allowed to-"

"This kingdom won't _last_ without me!" Gattaca snarled. "Weren't you the one that just said that? The balance will be thrown out of whack; you wouldn't be able to handle it. But I'm stronger than you, I've been studying it, if you were gone, I could take much better care of this place."

Geneva stared hard at her brother. No, it wasn't her brother anymore; it was a shell of what he used to be. He let his powers and his greed take him over and at this point, there was no way for him to return to the way he used to be.

Bailey frowned as she watched the exchange. In most ways, she hated him; she hated what he tried to do to his sister, his family. But also, in many ways, she sympathized with him. It must have been hard; having to listen to your younger sister, to not be recognized as much as she was for running the element world. And to have an element that was seen, mostly, as a bad thing, while when it was in balance with light, it could be a good thing. _Gattaca obviously wasn't happy, maybe if Geneva had seen it before, this wouldn't have happened._

Geneva then turned and walked over to Bailey, the hard look still on her face. Bailey looked up at her as Geneva moved her hands out and gently pushed Bailey's hair out of her face. She then wrapped her arms around the girl in a hug, and after a few moments Bailey hugged her back. It felt like hugging air, Bailey knew that she was holding onto Geneva, that she was actually hugging her, but it felt like she was holding onto something.

"Bailey," Geneva whispered in her ear. "It's time to wake up again," she pulled away to an arm's length and smiled down at the blonde-brunette teenage girl. "Do you understand what I have been trying to say?"

"Yes," Bailey smiled and nodded back. "Yes, I do."

"Good." Geneva smiled.

Bailey smiled back and closed her eyes.

…

..

.

When Bailey opened her eyes again, she was back in her suite at the Tipton hotel, curled up in a ball on her bed. As she woke up again, everything that had happened came flooding back to her and she hurried out of bed and over to the desk that was tucked in the corner of the room. Flipping on the lamp, she grabbed a notebook and pen and flopped down in the chair.

Pulling back the cover of the book so hard that she almost ripped it, Bailey got to work on her plan…

* * *

**A/N: Woo! Chapter 50 (well, technically 49, but 50). My longest SLOD story as well as my longest story to date! Thanks for all of the reviews guys; they keep me going, seriously. Looking it over, there's a lot that I have to go back and edit of my recent chapters and I'll probably get to that soon. Anyway, this chapter was about Geneva and Gattaca, the next one is for Reed, Christian, and Nathan/Core and what happened to them with elementals that were their most important moments.**

**Because this chapter had to do with Geneva, I figured it would make sense if it had to do with Bailey as well. You're one step closer to figuring out who the traitor is…, only two chapters away. I hope you can wait for it.**

**Sorry for the long wait for this, it's the holidays, you know how it is.**

**Cheers and Happy Holidays,**

**-Riles**


	51. Pretend that I'm your enemy

CHAPTER FIFTY

**A/N: Sorry if you get confused guys, this chapter jumps around a lot, I have the recaps from the first 4 'A look into the past' chapters here, and then there are new moments here as well.**

* * *

Nathan Reeves yawned loudly as he rubbed his eyes, getting his stuff together for class that morning. It was tedious, he knew everything that was happening in each of his classes and it bored him. But there weren't any more classes that held his attention or challenged him a little so he was stuck. But he was thankful that his classes that day were mostly science ones as science has always interested him. His mother had always said that if he didn't end up being a scientist later in life that it was the sign of the apocalypse.

Nathan sighed as he looked at his watch, he still had time before his class started, and he could get a head start on his next project.

Grabbing his laptop, he moved and sat back on his bed, waiting as the computer powered up. It was times like these, in the early morning and late at night that he wished he had decided to get a double room with a roommate instead of s ingle. But in the end, he liked his privacy, so he could deal with the loneliness after away. Just the same, he made a mental note to call his parents later.

As he pulled up the internet, instead of using a simple Google search like normal people did, Nathan decided to go a different way through the internet. He was an excellent hacker, and new a lot of how computers worked and how people would use different codes and storage files to keep their documents a secret. With the project he was doing for science, he would have to get a lot of information from the government, and instead of trying to sweet-talk his way into it, he decided to just get the information himself. As he was scrolling through the files, he noticed an odd one that had a lot of data in it, due to the size of the document.

As he pulled it open, his heart started to beat faster. Nathan knew ways that computers could hack into other computers without being detected, but this was the government that he was dealing with and they had scientists and computer experts that were trained to deal with this sort of thing. As he pulled open the document numerous news reports; images of newspaper clippings, news station videos, charts, graphs filled up the screen and they all had the same topic. 'Super humans' that were in Japan. Nathan's eyes widened as he continued to read.

The 'super humans', from what people had reported, were able to control elements like fire, water and were being witnessed. Some of them were using the power to help other innocent people who were in trouble, and others were using it to rob banks and wreak havoc. Each document that Nathan looked at had to do with the super humans and more and more appeared as Nathan continued to look through it.

By the time he had finished looking through them, Nathan had missed his first class and he had a name for them.

Elementals.

* * *

"What else have you found, Christian?" Reed Jackson questioned as he sat down next to Nathan. He looked up as two women passed and he lowered his voice, leaning forward. "Is it just us?"

"Yes, it is just us," Christian Manning replied and brushed his brown hair out his eyes. "I have gone around and asked people, without telling them everything exactly, what we have found, and no one else has even given a hint that they knew about it too."

"People that can control elements," Nathan let out a breath as he leaned back in his seat. He laughed incredulously. "Sounds like it came out of a Sci-Fi movie."

"I was thinking the same thing," Reed stated as she shook his head, leaning back as well. He sat still for a second and then crossed his legs. "There has to be a reason that we found out about this," he looked at Christian and then over at Nathan. "The three of us, there has to be a reason why us three college guys are the only ones that found out about this."

"I was wondering that exact same thing," Christian commented as Nathan opened his mouth to say something. He closed it when Christian continued. "From some of the information that I had found, elementals had awakened from finding out that others were elementals, so, maybe that has something to do with us."

"So what you're saying is that we're possible elementals?" Nathan questioned as he raised an eyebrow skeptically.

"I'm not saying that exactly," Christian replied, shaking his head. "I'm saying that it be why we're the ones that found out about it."

"Either way, it's something that we have to research more," Reed interjected, lowering his voice even further. "I think that we should continue our studies on this on our own and meet up again, same place, same time, next week."

"Agreed." Nathan nodded.

* * *

"So I bet that you three are wondering why I've asked you to stay after class today," Professor Trethaway stated as he closed the door to his classroom and looked over at Christian, Reed, and Nathan. The three of them were sitting in their seats, silently casting glances at each other out of the corner of their eyes.

What had they done wrong?

Were they talking too loud during class?

Did he notice them passing notes?

Maybe they just weren't paying as close attention to their work as they used to.

"I'm sure that you're aware that your science projects are due soon," Professor Trethaway continued as he sat down on the desk at the front of the room and crossed his arms over his chest. "But that's not really what I wanted to talk about. I have noticed that you three haven't been doing as well in this class as you used to. Bluntly, I can tell you that I could never get you three to shut up when I wanted other students to try, and now you're just completely silent." He raised his eyebrows. "You do know that class participation is a big percent of your grade?"

"With all due respect, sir, I think that the class participation that we have done in the past will put us above and beyond the minimum that we need for class participation," Reed spoke up. "Even if we don't talk in class."

"Duly noted." Professor Trethaway confirmed after a moment. He took a deep breath and then changed the subject. "So how are your projects coming? I don't think that you've told me what your ideas are for it."

_Well, we definitely can't tell him that we found out about something that the government is hiding _Christian thought to himself as he shifted in his seat, trying not to let his teacher know that he was nervous. He had been told numerous times before that he wore his heart on his sleeve, and he didn't want the whole thing to blow up in their faces, especially if they could potentially go to jail for having accidentally tapped into something they shouldn't have seen. _But I haven't even really decided what my cover was going to be. I should have thought about it before._

"We are researching the science behind the idea of reincarnation." Nathan spoke up smoothly. Christian and Reed exchanged glances and looked over at their friend, but he continued to look ahead, silkily avoiding their gaze. "As well as the psychological aspects of it."

"Interesting," Professor Trethaway had a wicked gleam in his eye as he rubbed his chin. "What do you think about it?" he started to uncuff his sleeves and roll them up to his forearms.

"Well," Nathan paused for a second as something caught his eye. He looked down at Professor Trethaway's forearm and his eyes narrowed slightly when he saw a strange symbol sitting on it. "We haven't really been able to get a lot of answers, because we have been researching many different things at once. To be honest we're kind of disorganized, but we'll get our heads in it soon." He lifted his eyes to Professor Trethaway's and they narrowed even further when he saw a flash of something.

"That's good to know." Professor Trethaway nodded and pushed himself off of his desk. "That's all I needed to know boys, thanks." He turned and walked out of the room.

"I don't know how," Nathan spoke up before Christian or Reed could. "But he knows what we're really doing."

* * *

"So what you're telling me is that you think that there is a certain way to tell who is an elemental and who isn't?" Christian asked as he watched hotdog vendor spread mustard on his hot-dog. "Like, there's some sort of a tattoo that they each have?"

"I didn't say it was a tattoo," Nathan commented as he crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for Reed and Christian to finish getting their lunch. "I just said that there was a mark on his arm."

"And what makes you think that Professor Trethaway is an elemental?" Reed asked as he grabbed his hotdog and took a large bite. "I mean, because it can't be the way that he seems to know what everyone is doing when his back is turned. I think every teacher has that ability."

"Two reasons really," Nathan rubbed his fingers through his hair, suddenly feeling self-conscious. "The fact that when I looked at him after I was explaining what our fake project is, which I have to get started on by the way, he looked at me as if he was lying."

"Yeah, then you said that he knew what we were really doing?" Reed insisted through a full mouth. "What was that supposed to mean?"

"Ok, well, I don't think that he knows exactly what we're doing, but the look on his face…" Nathan stopped short and shook his head. "I don't know, maybe I'm over thinking this." He turned and looked across the park that the three of them were standing in.

"I could have told you that," Christian snorted and turned, holding onto two hot-dogs. He held one out to Nathan. "Now calm down, pull that stick out of your butt, and eat your hotdog." Nathan looked down at it for a second before knocking it out of Christian's hand, smirking. "I was going to eat that if you didn't want that." Christian protested as Reed burst out into laughter.

"You know the most irritating thing about you two is that you never seem to know when to be serious." Nathan realized.

"And yet, you're still our friend." Reed shrugged and gave a half-smile. "As for that mark thing that you were talking about, don't you think that it would be a little obvious if all elementals had the mark in the exact same place with the same symbol? The way I see it, it would be in a different spot and have different symbols, probably going along with the element you control."

Nathan's eyes flew wide open. "Dude, that's it," he cried.

"What's it?" Reed looked startled at the sudden outburst and Christian just looked interested.

"The mark, tattoo thing, I just remembered," Nathan lowered his voice. "I just remembered that when we were first looking into the government thing, one elemental had the mark on his ankle."

"So that means," Christian nodded slowly. "That there could be anyone in our school, or in the world, that's an elemental, but we wouldn't know because their mark could be disguised as a tattoo or it's just covered by their clothes." He turned and tossed his half-eaten hot-dog into the trash can. "So what are we going to do now?"

"We're going to see just how many people we know are actually elementals." Nathan replied.

"I had a feeling you were going to say that." Reed sighed and then studied Nathan. "I think I liked you better when you were quiet."

Nathan grinned.

* * *

"So someone explain to me how we're going to be able to check to see who has an element mark and who doesn't?" Reed stated as he scratched his eyebrow, bringing his feet up and putting them on Nathan's bed.

Nathan walked by and knocked them off before going over to his computer. "You're getting annoyed aren't you?" he questioned as he shook the mouse and brought up a web browser.

"No, what gave you _that_ idea?" Christian replied, chuckling as he passed a tennis ball back and forth between his hands. "The fact that he's starting to use his Australian accent again, or the fact that it's a very beautiful day outside, we could be going to the park or into town or something, but instead we're dealing with something that could potentially get us killed." He shrugged.

"Yeah, well, there's a reason we found out about this," Nathan turned in his chair to face his friends. "To save the world, maybe," he shrugged. "I don't know, but you can't tell me that you're not interested in this stuff."

"I didn't say that." Reed interrupted, raising his eyebrows. "I'm just wondering how much time we're going to invest in this stuff."

"Don't worry about that," Nathan shook his head. "At least not for now, for now it's just a project that we're researching…when we're supposed to be researching something else for an actual project that's for a grade." He turned back to his computer and then motioned for Reed and Christian to join him. "See," he jabbed at the computer screen with his thumb. "These two images that I downloaded on my computer, and hid amongst a bunch of files in case someone gets my IP address, these two elementals have the same mark-"

"The element mark," Reed interrupted and then smirked when Christian and Nathan looked over at him. "What? Someone else should have a chance to name things other than Nathan." He defended himself.

"Anyway," Nathan turned back to the computer. "These 'element marks'" he used air-quotes around the words. "Are in different places, kind of like tattoos, like I said before. They could be anywhere on the persons' body, so if we're going to look for them, we're going to have to keep from drawing attention to ourselves and what we're doing."

"And how do you propose we do that?" Christian demanded, crossing his arms over his chest.

"You're going to have to figure that out on your own."

...

..

.

"Geez Nathan, didn't you ever think that this was going to be harder than you originally thought?" Christian asked aloud as he rubbed his neck.

He hadn't had any luck with looking for elemental marks, most of the ones that he had been able to get close enough too turned out to be tattoos, and the others would just notice that he was staring at them funny and walk away as fast as possible. It didn't help much that many of the women he was looking at slapped him for staring at them so intently. "He better be having better luck than I am or someone is seriously going to pay for this."

He shook his head as he continued walking along the streets of the city, minding his own business and looking around at everyone hat he passed. He had just stopped at a crosswalk and was waiting to go across when he heard a voice form an alleyway almost to his immediate left.

"Give me all your money!" A strange man said.

Christian's first instinct was to figure out what was going on, he never was one that was able to just sit idly by while someone was being mistreated. It was never his nature.

"Here, take the purse. Just . . . just, leave me alone." A feminine voice said.

Christian turned on his heel and hurried into the alleyway, looking back and forth as he slowly inched forward, making sure to keep his footsteps light. The man was about five and a half feet tall with short brown hair wearing jeans and a black jacket.

The woman had shiny black hair and was petite, but despite her size, she was standing her ground and glaring at the man. "You got your money, now leave." The woman said forcefully.

The man began laughing. "I don't think so," he walked over to her and leaned close to her, whispering something in her ear. Christian couldn't tell what he was saying, but it seemed to make the woman angrier. Christian moved closer to the two of them, still staying as silent as possible. When he was close enough, he spoke up.

"Leave her alone!" he declared.

The man looked at Christian and snorted. "You're going to stop me?" The man laughed a little.

"Yeah."

The man turned around, making it seem like he was going to turn away from Christian, but then spun around and punched Christian across the face. Christian stumbled back a few steps, caught off guard, but then easily returned with a punch to the man's stomach.

The man bent over, gasping for air as he tried to catch his breath. Using the time that the man was down, Christian reached over and grabbed the woman's arm, lightly tugging her forward. "C'mon. We gotta move."

The woman looked away from the man that was kneeling in front of her and turned to Christian, her eyes still blazing with the will to fight. "Thank you," she said with a nod.

Christian nodded back, "You're welcome. Now, let's move!"

The woman stood rooted where she stood. "My purse, he still has it."

Christian turned around, his eyes scanning the ground, and then moved forward, retrieving the purse. While grabbing it, he kicked the guy on the back, as he was on all fours, sending him to the pavement. Christian shook his head, and handed the purse to the woman. "Let's get out of here."

The woman nodded, "Sure. My name's Kristin."

Christian smiled, "Christian." His smile then faded a little. "I don't mean to be rude when I ask this, but, it's obvious that you're part Asian, so how can you have the name Kristin?"

"Old fashioned father…liberal mother…different views," Kristin replied with a shrug and a smile. "It's a long story."

"A long story meaning that you don't want to tell me?" Christian raised an eyebrow.

"A long story meaning that I would like to meet up to tell you about it." Kristin replied, raising an eyebrow herself before smiling.

Christian smiled back.

* * *

It was a chilly Thursday afternoon and Reed had to get out of his dorm for some fresh air. Really, he didn't have a choice; there were a bunch of his hall mates that were screaming and yelling and chugging beer. How they could do that so early in the day, he wasn't sure. But he didn't need a throbbing headache and a sore throat (from effectively screaming at them) that early either.

So the library was the first place that he thought of going, besides, it wouldn't hurt to see if there was any books there that could help him, Nathan, and Christian. He made his way up the stairs to the first floor, instinctively going over to the back where the fantasy section was located.

He stopped and watched as a petite young woman was standing on her tip-toes, trying to grab a book that was on a shelf above her. Obviously she did not want to be put off by this; she tried jumping several times, without much success. She gave up and turned her back to the book and sighed exasperatedly.

Reed then strolled across to where she was to help her; with ease, he lifted up his arm and slid the book out from the shelf from where she was trying to reach and after looking at the cover and smiling, he handed it to her.

"Here you go." He said. "I noticed you couldn't reach so I thought I'd do the gentlemanly thing and help you out", he said holding his gaze into her eyes a bit longer than normal.

"Thank you", the woman replied gratefully. She fidgeted with her hands, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

"Um …" she started, thinking of how to begin a conversation to ease the awkwardness of the situation.

"So … what's your name then?" Reed prompted.

"Ruriko", she said shortly, before adding "And why are you staring at me so much? Is there something on my face, or hair maybe?" She touched her dark hair nervously.

"No, not at all," Reed said defensively, shaking his head. "I just thought how pretty you look close up …" He gave a shrug.

Ruriko looked shocked, her mouth hanging open. She glanced to her side twice then pointed at herself, fixing her brown eyes on him in astonishment.

"_You_ find _me_ attractive?" she said unbelievably. "Is this a practical joke you and your mates dared you to say to me?" She then looked angry."

"What?" Reed looked annoyed. "No! Course not! Look Ruriko" he spoke slowly, obviously trying carefully not to offend her again, "My name's Reed Jackson and I came here alone today, and I promise you this isn't a joke. I seriously think you're pretty."

"Well" she said hesitantly, "I really don't know what to say, Reed. I'm flattered, it's just I'm not used to such compliments. Thanks", she managed a small smile.

"No problem," Reed grinned in reply.

* * *

"I can't believe that you're thinking of bringing them into your lives," Nathan said, shaking his head. "Don't you realize how stupid that is?" He turned in his chair to face his best friends. "The other thing I find funny though is that you're roommates, best friends, and _just so happen_ to be dating a set of twins."

"Hey, I met her first," Christian declared. "And it's not _my _fault that Reed can't make his own identity," he gently jostled his friend's shoulder before standing up and moving next to Nathan. "And there's no problem with having a girlfriend, it will keep us from going insane while we're trying to figure this stuff out, it's-"

"Irresponsible?" Nathan supplied with a shrug.

"Normal," Reed replied, blinking slowly. "Besides, you're acting like we're going to marry these girls."

"You might." Nathan pointed out.

"We might not."

"But you might," Nathan insisted. He stayed silent for a few moments as his eyes darted around his dorm room. Everything that had seemed so simple before, go to college, get a job, get married, have kids, live life, and die. But he didn't think that something as big as the discovery of elementals would derail everything that he had been working for. He shook his head. "I guess I just don't get it," he muttered after a moment. "Why you would bring someone else in this…?"

"Maybe they know something we don't," Christian shrugged. "I don't' know, I got kind of a weird vibe from Kristin, like she was hiding something from me."

"You've only been dating her a month!" Reed snorted.

"Still," Christian insisted. "I don't know why, but for some reason it seems to me that things like this all stem from Japan, or something, and they're Japanese-American, so-"

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" Nathan stated after a moment. Christian shot him an offended look, and Nathan just gave a smile in reply, before chuckling. He then rubbed his eyes tiredly. "It's stupid, but it may be plausible." He turned back to his computer. "I have to check that out."

"What you have to do is get a girlfriend," Reed then got up and walked over to Nathan, slapping him on the shoulder. "Come on; hang out with us tonight, Nate. You can get to know our girls and maybe you can find a nice girl and relax."

"I'll relax when I can finally figure this all out," Nathan replied. He looked up. "And please don't call me Nate; I _hate_ that as a nickname."

"Then what can we call you, because Nathan sounds so goddamn boring it almost puts me to sleep," Reed pretended to yawn. He shrugged as Christian turned his sharp look to him. "What? I can't be blunt with my friends?"

"I don't know," Nathan shrugged. "I was just thinking about the nickname Core. That sounds cool, right?"

"Yeah, awesome," Christian licked his lips and placed his hands on his hips. "So are you coming or not?" Nathan shook his head. "Ok, but it's your loss."

"Really?" Nathan didn't sound convinced. "Going out with two girls to get something to eat and quite possibly get drunk and watch as Reed races around the roads like a speed-demon, you think that's fun?" His humorous look faded. "Trust me, from experience I've learned that getting involved with girls is going to do nothing but cause the death of you."

* * *

Nathan Reeve's face held no emotion as he walked back to his car. Once arriving, he looked around at the people; men, women, and children dressed in black as they walked to their cars, murmuring about how the funeral service was beautiful. Nathan's lip curled as he watched them, his hand clenching into a fist around the key he was holding.

He ignored the pain.

It couldn't be as painful as losing one of his best friends. There was no pain in the world that would help him get over it. He finally unlocked the car and slid inside, behind the steering wheel. He pulled his phone from his pocket and, making sure he changed the settings so his number wouldn't be traced, he called someone.

"Hey, it's me," he greeted. "The funeral was fine, I guess. Too stuffy, Reed definitely wouldn't have wanted that, you know he'd had wanted a party." He gave a brief smile. "I called to tell you that and to tell you that you need to stay in hiding, your daughter will be fine, I'll watch over her and over her cousins, but you need to stay out of sight. I'll continue to watch Halo Syndicate, don't try to contact me unless you really need something and don't tell your daughter anything if you catch up to her again." He paused. "Pretend that I'm your enemy, things will go better. Ok, ok, you too, bye."

Nathan hung up his phone and peeled out of the parking lot, heading onto the highway, and driving out of sight….

* * *

**A/N: I showed how Ruriko and Reed met because I wanted to show their personalities and how it goes into their kids; Reed's outgoingness is Julius, Patrick, and Sydney and Ruriko's shyness is Noah, her sudden anger is Riley, and her suspicion is Rhuben. I had thought about adding in their weddings and realized that that wasn't really that important. And I bet you're also wondering why Gattaca's attack them or the revelation of whether or not Ruriko and Kristin are actually elementals was not shown. But don't worry, it will be done soon. I hope you guys liked this chapter. I'll update again soon. I know that I said that this chapter would show the traitor, but I felt that it was stronger on its own, so the next one shows it.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	52. The Traitor is revealed

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

* * *

_"Fuck!" Zhane cried, slamming his hands down on the table so hard, it cracked in half and crashed to the ground. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" He continued to slam his hands down on the table over and over again until the table was reduced to dust and splinters. "I should have gotten rid of all of them when they were going to that __stupid__ hotel." He furiously grabbed onto his head. "Instead of trying to turn them into their __stupid__ animal spirits."_

_He brought a fist up to his mouth as he started to pace back and forth in his cramped room of the warehouse that held Halo Syndicate's headquarters. He was the only one awake, his remaining three henchmen were somewhere in the building. But he didn't worry about that, at that moment in time, he was worried that the people he was fighting against new his secret._

_The secret that he had kept secret for a very long time and never expected to be found out before he destroyed them._

_Stupid Geneva, always having to go and do the right thing__…__Zhane flopped himself down into the large leather chair that had been sitting behind the desk and gently rocked himself back and forth. He couldn't hold still, his fingers were fluttering as he tried to figure out what to do. __I should have known that eventually they were going to find out what had happened. I just didn't expect it to be so soon._

_Zhane looked up as the room was illuminated with light. He looked up through the broken window and saw a cloud slowly moving away from the moon, bringing the mystic light into the room. He turned the chair around and watched as the shadows in the room slowly started to move away. His eyes narrowed as he turned back around and looked up at the moon._

_The moon is a bright light that seems unable to go out…__a smirk slowly started to form on Zhane's face. __But there is always darkness on the other side, you just can't see it._

_Zhane got to his feet and closed his eyes as he bowed his head. He concentrated on the energy in his body and released it outward. Black and purple light enveloped his body and he started to levitate up in the air. The energy started to shoot off in all directions, striking the walls and the beams of the building around him as he continued to rise higher and higher into the air. The room filled with the darkness energy and as he neared the top of the warehouse, the ceiling started to crack under the immense pressure._

_"Come to me, all those that holds the power of darkness…come to me so that we can take over the human world and the elemental world." Zhane lifted his head, his eyes glowing black. "COME TO ME!"_

* * *

"Zack, what are you doing?" Zack lifted his head and looked up at Cody, who entered their former suite tentatively. Cody gently closed the door behind him and Phantom appeared at his side before flying over and landing on the back of the couch, next to Blazen. "I've been looking all over for you; we're going to the park so we can get some sparring in." He explained as he walked closer to his brother. "We think that with everything that we found out recently, Zhane is probably going to try and attack us and we need to be ready, plus Bailey needs to-"

"For _once _can you _please_ not talk about Bailey?" Zack asked in a harsh whisper. "It's getting pretty annoying, and honestly, I liked it better when you were dating Rhuben and Crystal, so if there's any way you can go back to one of them, that'd be great."

"What's your problem?" Cody made a face as he crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at his brother. He then squeezed his eyes shut as he thought for a moment. "And, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't _you_ the one that has been chasing after Riley all these years?"

"Yeah, but at least I knew when to back off and date someone else before I tried again instead of acting like some sort of freak that can't even realize that she doesn't even belong in our group and that you have an ex-girlfriend that still has feelings for you." Zack replied, his eyes flashing.

"What?" Cody let out an incredulous laugh and then his face softened before he moved over to stand next to his twin. "Where's this coming from?"

"My anger towards mom and ad apparently," Zack replied after a moment of silence. "I found what mom and ad were looking for before they left very, _very_ fast." He reached underneath the couch and pulled out two picture frames. "Pictures of us." He handed them over to Cody, who took them, his mouth and eyes wide open. Zack got to his feet and started to pace back and forth. "This is fucking ridiculous, we try to keep them here and try to explain _everything_ that's going on, but all they wanted to do was get away from us because we're _freaks_!" He waved his hands over his head. "And _now_ I find that they were looking for pictures of us? HOW MESSED UP IS THIS?"

"Zack, calm down," Cody said after a minute of stunned silence. He took a deep breath. "I know that all of this is hard and-"

"You can't _possibly _tell me that you're not pissed off by all this." Zack stated sharply.

"Well, I mean, I guess Mom and Dad _could _have-"

"No," Zack interrupted. "I mean, with all of this. All of the elemental stuff, not being able to be normal, having to drag our friends into it, having our family threatened, having to worry about people dying day after day after day!" He was starting to get emotional. "You can't tell me that none of this stuff is getting to you." He looked skeptical. "Or are you just better at hiding it?"

"Having to be the _mature _one…" Cody took the cheap shot at his brother, but then his smile faded quickly. "Zack, you can't tell me that you think that none of this is bothering me. Do you think that I _wanted_ to fall for Bailey? Not when all of this was happening, I didn't want her anywhere near this, but it happened. And our friends are stuck in this, that happened, and we all have to think about other people and their lives and trying to keep them from trouble." He continued as Zack let out a deep breath through his nose. "I know that you're the one that's feeling the most…_passionate_ about this because you're the unofficial leader of all of us, but we still deal with the same things that you are, but we try not to dwell on things that we can't change."

"No, we can change this," Zack stated heatedly. "As soon as we get rid of the freak."

"There's always going to be someone or something that's going to try and get rid of us," Cody pointed out, trying to stay as calm as possible. "And being mad about everything isn't going to help. I want this to end as much as you do, and that's not going to happen until we take more action instead of feeling sorry for ourselves."

"I know," Zack admitted after a minute. "Trust me, I know, I just want all of this to be over."

"And it will be, Zack," Blazen said as he flew over to Zack and landed on his shoulder. "You know me and you know Phantom and you know that everyone will try to take care of you and try to make sure that everyone in your life is safe." He nuzzled his face against Zack's cheek. "We're here because we're trying to help you fix everything. Don't forget that it's our world too and we're just trying to get it back to the way it was."

"That's right," Phantom agreed. "Our world is the one that's falling apart as well as yours, and we want this to end as much as you do." He exchanged looks with Blazen, his wing-tips fluttering slightly. "No matter how it will end, we just want everyone to be happy."

As perceptive as always, Cody noticed the sharp change in Phantom's tone. "What do you mean?" He asked slowly. Phantom stayed silent. "What do you mean, 'no matter how it all ends'? You're the one that told us, a long time ago, that it was our prophecy to stop everything that's going on. It's supposed to happen that way."

"And the elemental world was supposed to be run by both Gattaca _and _Geneva and you know how that turned out," Phantom replied, with slight snark to his tone. "I'm just saying if things don't turn out the way we want…well…" He shrugged (in the best way that a bird could). "We don't know what's going to happen, and we won't know until all of this is said and done."

Zack just shook his head, taking another deep breath.

Sometimes, he felt that being an elemental was a burden, although he knew that a younger self was the one that wished things that could be more eventful. He definitely got his wish when he met the Jacksons, but at the same time, he wondered if it was something that he really wanted. Of course, he didn't have a choice about it now, he was stuck with this and he couldn't accurately explain how he was feeling. He knew that if he didn't have these powers of these experiences, he wouldn't have been able to grow up the way that he did and hold the sense of responsibility that he did now.

It was a debate that he constantly had in his head, that he tried to ignore, but now that things were getting worse, it was starting to break him down again.

"Guys," Tapeworm appeared at the door with Max, both of them looking worried. "We really need your help."

"What's going on?" Cody asked as he and Zack instinctively pushed aside what they were just talking about and getting ready for whatever was coming their way.

"It's the Jacksons and Crystal, something's going on." Max replied, her eyes wide. "I don't know what it is; we were just talking to them, waiting to go to the park after Cody got you and they all suddenly fell to the ground, holding their heads."

Cody let in a sharp breath, instantly recognizing it. "Darkness?" he guessed.

"But it's never affected Crystal before," Tapeworm shook his head, looking hesitant. "We thought the same thing…I don't know, it's different this time."

"Come on," Zack turned to Blazen and started towards the door.

"Wait," Cody said before the four of them could leave."

Zack whirled around, his eyes wide. "Wait for what? If it is the Darkness, then we're going to need to be there to help them, especially if Bailey doesn't know what to do." He explained.

"But that's my point," Cody said quickly. "Just hear me out, Reed and Christian were both attacked by Gattaca with his powers and he controls the element of darkness. Maybe Geneva, who is in Bailey and is trying to help her, can help them. Maybe she's strong enough to help them get rid of the darkness on her own."

Max, who was constantly looking back and forth from the hallway to the twin boys that were stand in the suite, was wondering how they could take their sweet time just wanting to talk things out. She always thought that they talked too much, at times it really helped them, but now that it was something this big…

"Cody, I don't think that someone that is still learning their powers can help." Tapeworm said as calmly as possible. His hand was twitching on the doorknob, obviously rearing to go. He suddenly paused, his eyes narrowing. "Unless you know something we don't."

Cody's right cheek twitched. _Bailey entrusted me to keep the secret that there's a traitor among us, how can I try to tell them without actually telling them what's going on?_ He opened his mouth to speak, but then slapped his hands over his ears, along with Zack, as a loud, terrified scream filled his ears.

"What's wrong?" Max asked, noticing the pained expressions on Zack's and Cody's faces.

"You didn't hear that?" Zack demanded his hands still over his ears.

"I don't have as good of hearing as you do, dude." Max replied, shaking her head. "What did you hear?"

Cody didn't get a chance to answer, he squeezed his eyes shut and dropped to his knees as he heard another long, loud, anguished scream. All of a sudden, he felt scared and helpless. It was as if everything that he had thought that could make him happy, had just been sucked out of him.

"Come on," he managed to croak. "Let's get downstairs."

Max and Tapeworm helped Cody to his feet and the four teenagers hurried out of the suite and down to the lobby as fast as they could. As soon as they burst into the lobby, they noticed that something was very off; everyone was walking through the lobby as if nothing was happening.

But something was indeed, happening. WingzCorp and Bailey were kneeling around the Jacksons and Crystal, who were lying on the ground, staring blankly at the ceiling. Bailey was at Noah's side, shaking his arm, but WingzCorp was sitting around, almost passively.

"What happened?" Zack demanded as he, Cody, Max, and Tapeworm hurried over to them.

"I don't know," Bailey sounded fearful, turning away from her fallen friends. "I was talking to them about what we were going to be doing at the park, because of this plan that I made, and before I knew it, they looked like they were in pain and fell to the ground."

"Darkness?" Cody guessed, looking over at WingzCorp.

"Yeah, that's it," Reihu commented with a sigh, from where he was kneeling by Rhuben's body, watching her face carefully. "I recognize it from when they were at WingzCorp, and Core was working on them to try and make sure that he could make machines to control it whenever he needed to." He tilted his head and looked over at Crystal. "But I didn't think she had a problem with it."

"Normally she doesn't," Cody agreed as Tapeworm bent down and started to shake her.

"Crys," Tapeworm grabbed her shoulders and started to shake her. "Crys, wake up. Come on, wake up."

Crystal's eyes suddenly closed and when she opened them again, they went from a navy blue color back to its crystal blue. They darted around for a minute and she closed her eyes once more before lurching up into a sitting position, gasping loudly.

"Ow," she whimpered, moving her hands up to her head. "Ow, it hurts."

"Dude, we're right here." Max moved to Crystal's side. "What happened? Can you tell us what happened when you were talking to Bailey?" Bailey shuffled forward, looking over her friends' faces.

"I didn't know what to do," Bailey said, brushing tears off of her cheeks. "One moment they were fine and the next-"

"Can someone shut her up, please?" Tori snapped, looking annoyed.

"It's alright, Bailey, you didn't know what was going on," Zack reassured her. "We never told you what this was like." He licked his lips as he waited for Crystal to calm down. "There are times where the Jacksons can get taken over by the darkness, you know, because it was put into them from their father by Gattaca, but nothing like this had ever happened to Crystal before."

Bailey nodded quietly.

"Crys," Cody reached out and took her hand, holding it gently in his own. "Crys, what happened?"

Crystal finally started to relax, her breathing returning to normal. She looked around at everyone around her, trembling a little bit. "I could hear his voice," she said in a low murmur, causing everyone to lean forward to hear her. "Gattaca's voice, I could hear it in my head. He was calling us to him, everyone that had darkness in him; he's trying to call them to him. I tried to fight it as soon as I heard his voice, the urge to go with him, but it was hard, his powers are so strong." She swallowed thickly. "I don't know how I got away from it…"

"Dammit!" Kuroko punched the ground. "This is worse than I thought! I didn't think that things would get this bad this fast. He's going to try and take over the world faster than we anticipated, he must know that we know and he wants to eliminate us before it's too late."

Patrick's eyes shot open, although they were a blue-black, not their normal color. "GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD!" He shouted. "GET THE VOICES OUT OF MY HEAD!" He brought his hands up and started to hit himself with his fists. "GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT! _MAKE IT STOP!"_

"What should we do?" Bailey demanded, turning to Zack. "You've all dealt with this before." He looked around. "It doesn't seem like anyone is paying attention," hotel patrons continued to move around them, not paying any attention to those that were on the floor. "But we don't know if they'll start attacking because they're trying to get away from Gattaca's voice."

_Ugh, why do __I__ have to be the one that makes all the decisions? _Zack looked around at all of his friends. They were in obvious pain, groaning as they twitched around, and Patrick was still screaming, desperately pleading to be let go.

"There's nothing that we can do but wait for them to stop," Zack said after a moment. "And deal with it when they wake up."

"If anything, we should watch for them for the rest of the night to make sure that nothing else happens." Cody added, staring at Bailey, who looked back at him.

* * *

The window to the Tipton kitchen slid open and a bag was tossed out of the window and onto the ground. Then the window open wider and a small body shimmied out and gently dropped to the ground.

"Master Sydney," The bag shifted and unzipped itself, allowing SpiritSaru's head to poke out. He shook out his fur and looked up at the small boy as he grabbed his bag and slung it over his shoulder. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Trust me," Sydney replied firmly. "This is the best thing to do." He held out his hand. "Unfading Promise." He whispered and his staff appeared in his hand. He quickly climbed on. "Do you know where we're going?"

"Yes." SpiritSaru replied with a confident nod before ducking back into the bag and closing it again.

Sydney nodded once and took off into the air…

* * *

**A/N: I really needed to show more of Zack's and Cody's relationship and Zack's problems with what was going on, as well as what Zack is struggling with. But I also see that he would have a massive amount of pressure because he is the leader of all of them and because they're always turning to him to figure out what to do.**

**Alright guys, now you know the traitor. I bet that you guys knew who it was, but this isn't going to work out the way that you think it will. At least, I hope not, because I think that the way I have it going will actually shock and surprise a lot of you.**

**Anyways…NOW THE ACTION STARTS! FIGHTS GALORE! Sorry for the all caps, I'm really excited for it, because I haven't written a fighting scene in a while, but everything I put up was important and I hope to all EVERY SINGLE question done by the time that this story is over. And because the story will be about 65 chapters long, there's not a lot left.**

**Sorry it took me a while to get this up; I had it up at one point, but then took it back down because I didn't think that it was written very well, and I still don't think that it really showed what I wanted it to show, but I like it anyway. I may go back later and change some things though.**

**I'll update again soon.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	53. The group splits up

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

* * *

Sydney's dark blue-black eyes merely blinked up at the broken down building in front of him. _You'd think for the 'evil guys' hideout it would be a bit more put together. _He slid off of his staff and waved it once, allowing it to disappear in a flash of bright blue light. He then hoisted his bag up over his shoulder and walked inside the building.

"Ah, I knew that one of you would come." Sydney tilted his head back and looked up at Zhane, who gently floated down from the ceiling, black and purple flashes of energy still coming off of his body. "No one can resist the powers of darkness that easily." He frowned slightly. "I figured that your sister would have come."

"She has been good with keeping her powers under control," Sydney replied easily. "But of course, no one would expect me to be the one that went," he gave a hollow laugh. "Not when I'm the one that has all of their information on my laptop." He reached into his bag, being careful not to accidentally punch SpiritSaru in the face, and pulled out his light blue laptop. "All the information about their power levels as well as their fighting styles and strongest attacks are in there."

"Excellent," Zhane waved a hand and Sydney's laptop was engulfed in a bright purple light and was lifted up into the air and over to Zhane. "This will prove to be very useful." He turned back to Sydney as three figured appeared on the stairs above him. "Leslie, Hillary, Ashley, I want you to study everything on this laptop," he used his powers to move it over to the tallest girl. "Then when the time is right, you're going to use it against our enemy."

"Got it, Sir." The tallest girl replied as the other two nodded.

"And take this boy, with you."

"With all due respect, I'd like to get some sparring in first," Sydney commented as he glowed a dark blue and started to float off of the floor. "You know, just so I can make sure that I have a full capacity on my powers, just in case I need to go against one of my own family." He waited until Zhane nodded before floating out of one of the holes that had appeared in the roof of the building. He gently landed on the roof and set his bag aside; opening it so SpiritSaru poked his head out. "My plan is working already, now all we have to do is wait until the first fight and blast those guys to smithereens."

SpiritSaru nodded and climbed up onto Sydney's head, holding on tightly with his paws. "I may have underestimated you at first, but now I see that this will actually work."

"I can't believe you doubt me," Sydney snorted. "It will be easily to lure them out. The spirit copy of me will be there until they're attacked or they figure out that's it's really not me, but by then, it'll be too late."

* * *

"How are they?" Bailey asked as she walked into her suite, looking at her five friends that were lying still on the floor. Every now and then they would start groaning and move, but they didn't many any movements other than that. They had agreed that they would stay in Bailey's suite, just in case Geneva's powers would be able to help them in some way, shape, or form. So far, it's done nothing. "Still the same?"

"Yeah," Max murmured, her chin resting in her hands. "We don't know when they're going to snap out of it, they've never been like this before." She leaned back against the dresser behind her and snuggled into Tapeworm's side as he put his arm around her.

"The only thing that we've ever seen out of them is that every now and then, and Rhuben is the one that's more susceptible to it," Tapeworm added, gathering Bailey's attention. "Is that they'd be taken over by the darkness that's in them and they would go completely out of control. They would forget who their enemy is and just take their anger and power out on us, because we're trying to stop them."

"Oh," Bailey sighed as she looked around the room.

Zack and Cody were sitting by the door to the suite, just in case someone wanted to try and come into the room. But that wouldn't be likely; after everything that had gone on lately, so many people were moving out of the Tipton as each hour went by. According to the news reports, Boston was unsafe, but the government wouldn't explain anything that was going on. Even Esteban had said that he might just shut down the Tipton hotel completely.

Max and Tapeworm were sitting by a dresser, keeping their eyes on their friends. Out of everyone, they were the ones that Bailey knew the least, and with this whole disaster, it wasn't helping her get to know them. If anything, she was jealous. They were a part of Zack's and Cody's old life as well as the ones that became elementals at almost the same time that they had, so they knew a _whole_ lot more than Bailey did, even if they still had questions themselves.

Then there were the members of WingzCorp…who were good now she supposed. They were sitting on the opposite side of the room. They were working together, to try and stop Halo Syndicate, but at the same time, Bailey didn't see how having them around was going to help. Sure they were strong, sure they had animal characteristics, but they also had the guilt in knowing that most of what happened to Zack, Cody, and the others was partially their fault.

Then there was Crystal, sitting directly next to her cousins, watching them earnestly. She had her knees drawn up to her chest and their eyes were darting back and forth over each of their faces, if they moved or made a sound. Cody had explained to her that she was close to her cousins, but at other times they weren't, because they were always jealous of each other for something. Crystal wanted blood siblings (not that she didn't love Aaron) and the Jacksons wanted to have real parents. They all missed out on something and disliked the other for having what they wanted, but it also gave them common ground to stand on.

"Well, I brought some food up, just in case someone was hungry," Bailey added and walked over to her desk, placing a basket full of food down onto the wooden top. She laughed as the guardians, in their small forms, hurried over to the basket and started to grab their food. She noticed that DalFang, DeathLiger, ThunderTatsu, SilverTatsu, and SpiritSaru weren't there. Dricer was moving slower than the rest, probably still dealing with the darkness that had inhabited him.

Dricer grabbed a bag of chips in his teeth and turned and leapt off of the desk and walked over to Crystal, curling up in his mistress's lap as he dropped the bag down to her side.

"Thanks Bailey," Max gave her a soft smile and Tapeworm nodded in agreement.

"No problem," Bailey replied as she started to look through the basket to see if there was any food that she wanted herself. Her eyes landed on her notebook. It held the plan that she had created as soon as her dream or vision of what really happened with Geneva went away. She hadn't told the others yet and she wasn't sure if it was good idea, especially now that they were waiting for their friends to wake up.

_The time to reveal your plan will come to you. _Geneva said, instantly calming Bailey down. _Just be patient._

"Crystal," Tori finally broke the silence in the room, turning all eyes towards her. "What happened when you were under the darkness spell?"

Crystal sighed as she pulled her strand of blue hair out of her face. "I don't understand it…" she murmured, her voice barely audible. "One moment we were waiting for the others to get down so we could start sparring, the next thing I know, and there was this _horrible_ pain that flashed across my head. There was darkness everywhere and I could hear Gattaca trying to call us to him."

Koto made a growling sound, getting to his feet. His tail swished impatiently as he barked once and then turned to Kuroko. "What did he say, exactly?" Kuroko dictated for him.

Crystal squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to think about it. Finally, she opened her eyes, looking down at Dricer. "Come to me, all those that holds the power of darkness…come to me so that we can take over the human world and the elemental world."

"But you don't have the power of darkness," Canis pointed out.

"I know." Crystal replied.

"Maybe not," Reihu scratched his forehead. "But it's like you said, her dad was attacked by Gattaca. So maybe when she was born, part of the darkness that attacked him, latched onto her."

"But then how was she able to shake off Gattaca's hold faster than the others?" Zack asked the room. "That's what makes no sense."

"Actually, it does make sense." Crystal rebutted. She reached out a hand and slowly ran it over Dricer's back, causing her guardian to purr and arch his back into her hand. "It made sense as to why I had never been taken over by the darkness either; I figured it out a while ago." She lifted her eyes and looked over at Cody. "I figured it was obvious."

"What do you mean?" Bailey whispered.

"I mean, I never gave up hope, and that's what the darkness feeds off of, despair." Crystal swallowed thickly. "After my mom died, and my dad disappeared, I started to travel around the country, being hounded by WingzCorp as well as trying to figure out some things on my own. But I never gave up the hope that my Dad was around and looking for me, or was working to make a better life for us before he came back. But my cousins, they never had that chance. As soon as their parents died, they were taken to the orphanage, and then they worked a bit with WingzCorp. They didn't know that Julius was in a coma, they thought he was dead. So they allowed themselves to be adopted, giving up hope that there was someone that was going to make their life better for them. Especially after Robert started to abuse them." She paused only when Bailey stifled a gasp. "So they never thought that things were going to get better. They gave up hope, I didn't. That's why they haven't come out of this yet; they're still fighting to get away from the darkness."

"What'd you do to get away from it?" Cody asked, making a mental note of it in the back of his head.

"I saw Dricer, and my dad, and Aaron, and you guys…" she hesitated for a moment. "And my mom. I saw all of those things, and they were telling me not to give up, and that I was stronger than that." She shrugged.

"I wonder what they're seeing then." Tapeworm murmured. He let out a yelp as Patrick and Noah suddenly sat up, gasping for air the same way Crystal did.

WingzCorp moved quickly, crouching into different stances, in case they were going to have to start fighting them. But they calmed down when the twin boys put their hands to their heads, moaning quietly, but looking ok.

"You're awake!" Zack cried and they all moved closer. "Are you guys ok?"

"As ok as expected," Noah replied, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. They were back to their normal color, the darkness was gone. He eyed everyone around him. "What are you all sitting so close for?"

"You were trying to be put under the possession of Gattaca," Cody explained quickly. "Crystal explained to us how you get away from him…what did you think about?"

"Oh," Patrick looked surprised for a moment, seeming to bounce back from his battle with the darkness inside him pretty quickly. "My brothers and my sisters, my mom and dad, you guys," he seemed to notice the tension in the room, for he grinned and said "and pizza."

The others cracked smiles and chuckled a little bit as Noah rolled his eyes. "I basically saw the same thing…you know…minus the pizza." He turned and looked down at Sydney, his eyes narrowing slightly. _It's odd that he hasn't woken up yet, I figured he'd be one of the first, since he's always so happy. _He looked up and noticed that Cody was looking down at Sydney as well. He looked up and his and Noah's eyes locked.

"What about Rikk and err-"Caos quickly corrected himself. "Riley and Rhuben, what are we going to do with them? They're the ones that seem to have the most trouble with it, especially with their curses and all of that."

"Speaking of which, has anyone else besides me noticed that Riley hasn't turned into a wolf or a devil in a really long time?" Max spoke up. She turned to Patrick and Noah. "Right? It's been a _really _long time, and we've been running for months."

"Yeah, I noticed that too," Noah nodded. "We haven't been having any problems with that, I wonder why."

"Probably because we've had Geneva with us," Crystal reasoned. "I mean, with her powers of light and all that, it makes sense that she would be able to sense and prevent something like that from happening, 'cause I haven't been hit with my curse either."

"Maybe their curses come from Gattaca too, as soon as we get rid of him, everything will get back to normal." Tapeworm suggested. "You know," he shrugged. "As normal as normal can be with elements."

Crystal suddenly got to her feet, holding Dricer in her arms. "I'm going to my dad's." she announced to the shock of everyone in the room. "Before any of you try to change my mind, I really need to go, to make sure that he and Aaron are safe. And maybe we can get some more information out of Core while I'm there."

"Are you crazy?" Zack cried, his eyes widening. "What if Gattaca or Zhane, or whomever, is staking out your dad's house." He got to his feet. "Just think about it Crystal, what if-"

"No, Zack, she needs to go." Cody interrupted, getting to his feet as well. He looked over at Crystal before turning back to Zack. "Maybe this is what we need to do, maybe we need to split up, so it would be harder for Zhane and his henchmen to find us. I mean, we already killed two of them, I'm sure he's leaving the stronger ones for last, so if we split them up, they won't be able to combine their powers and defeat us."

"But…" Zack lowered his gaze to the floor. "We're always stronger when we're working together."

"And yet, for a month, we were perfectly fine when it came to being split up." Tapeworm added. He held up his hands in a defensive position as Zack turned to him, eyes set in a glare. "I'm just stating the facts. I would rather not split up, but as usual, Cody bodes a good point."

"It's my Dad and my brother, Zack," Crystal added, gaining Zack's attention again. "Not to make you feel upset, or to have an 'I told you so' moment, but you did the same thing when your parents were still here, you wanted to make sure that they were ok. I need to make sure my dad is ok." She shrugged. "And if anything happens, I'll be able to help them."

Zack closed his eyes and looked around the room. Everyone was looking back at him, waiting for his direction. _I really hate being the leader of this group sometimes. _"Alright," he said after a moment. "I get what you're saying and you're right. You should go."

"I'm going to go with her," Bailey announced. "Having Geneva in me, it might help Christian and Core figure out a way to defeat Gattaca, since they witnessed him first hand and they've been researching all of this elemental stuff." She looked over at Crystal and nodded firmly. "You may not want me around, but you're not going to stop me from coming."

"Ok," Zack licked his lips. "You two can-"

"I'm going to go too." Cody interrupted. "They may need me as a last resort, and if Zhane is going to attack again, it's probably not going to be a good idea to have both of us in the same area, especially if we get overpowered."

"Are you sure?" Zack's eyes searched his brother's, obviously not wanting him to go.

"I'm sure." Cody insisted.

Zack nodded and stepped forward, wrapping his arms around his twin brother in a tight hug. "Stay safe, little bro."

"I will." Cody replied, hugging him back. He let go of Zack and turned, holding out his arm. Phantom flew over and landed on his wrist. "If we run into any trouble, I'll let you guys know." He waved his other arm, showing off his element watch. "But we shouldn't have any problems."

"Then you might want to leave now," Kagenui said in his deep voice from the corner of the room, where he had been watching quietly. "Cover of darkness and all that."

"Ok," Crystal waited as Driver climbed up onto her shoulder. "We'll get going now, and we'll let you know when you get to the house." She started towards the door of the room. "We shouldn't have any problems because…Core has a large shield there, but you never know." She tilted her head towards Bailey. "Cody and I will keep our guards up to make sure she's safe."

Bailey frowned. She didn't want to be treated like a little kid, the one that she had to be looked out for, but she knew that it was true at the same time. She was the one that Zhane was after, so it made sense that she was the one that was heavily guarded.

"I know you will," Zack placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Take care of my brother, too."

"I will." Crystal nodded, looked over at Cody and Bailey to make sure that they were ready, and they left the hotel suite.

Zack watched them leave before turning back to the others, looking down at the floor at Riley, Rhuben, and Sydney. He brought his thumb up to his mouth as he thought about it. _Maybe it __is__ a good idea if we all split up. That way we won't have to worry about all being attacked at once and if could be a blind-sided attack later if we need one. _Zack pulled his hand away from his mouth to make the hardest decision of his life. "I think the rest of us should split up too."

"Are you sure?" Patrick asked, his eyebrows rising.

"Yeah," Zack agreed with a nod. "It's like what Cody said, it would be better if we're attacked, if they're looking for me, Cody, or Bailey, we wouldn't all be together and we wouldn't be sitting ducks."

"Ok," Tapeworm replied slowly as everyone else got to their feet. "Then who's going to go with whom?" Zack's eyes flickered over to Riley as soon as the question came out of his mouth. Tapeworm smiled warmly. "If you want to go with-"

"No, it's better if I don't." Zack interrupted, much to Tapeworm's intrigue. He turned his eyes back to his smart friend. "You make the decision, I trust you."

Tapeworm's eyes widened for a moment and he exchanged a look with Max, who nodded encouragingly. "Ok," he replied and looked at everyone in the room, only having to think for a few minutes. "I think that it should be you, Zack, with Patrick, Noah, Max and Koto. And me, Riley, Rhuben, Sydney, and Reihu." He looked at the other members of WingzCorp. "And the rest of them can decide who to go with." He added.

"That's interesting," Max noted. "How'd you come up with that?"

"Intuition," Tapeworm replied simply. "We can't have all of the Jacksons together, for the same reason that Zack and Cody can't be together, they're too strong, so they'll be targeted. And..." he turned to Max. "I'm not having you with me, because if HaloSyndicate know everything about us, they know the way to you is me, and I wouldn't want to corrupt anything because I would have to make a choice between you and my friends."

A strange look filled Max's eyes and she nodded.

"Are you sure, Tape?" Zack asked, his eyebrows rose. "What about the other members of WingzCorp?"

"Koto and Reihu are the ones that we've had to deal with the most, so they might be able to help each group, same with Tori, Tora, and Cindy. The others, they can choose to do what they want," Tapeworm continued. "Because we still don't know if they trust us enough."

"If that's what you think, then ok." Zack agreed. "I trust you, completely." He turned back to the Jacksons. "We should get them out of here." He shook his head. "I still don't get why they haven't woken up yet." He said under his breath to himself.

Patrick turned over to his baby brother and watched as he lay there very still. He watched him for a few moments before frowning. Something wasn't right. He wasn't acting the same way that Riley and Rhuben were, he wasn't moaning with a slight amount of pain than they were. He was just quiet, silently lying there. Patrick moved forward and looked closer at his brother. His face wasn't even screwed up with pain. No. That wasn't good.

"Pat, what's wrong?" Noah asked, noticing his demeanor change.

"This isn't Syd," he muttered.

"What?"

"This isn't Sydney." Patrick grabbed Sydney's right foot and lifted it into the air, pushing down his sock. His ankle was bear. "This isn't Syd, we all have tattoos right here, and there isn't one here." All of a sudden, Sydney disappeared, causing Patrick to hold onto air.

"What happened?" Tapeworm asked, suddenly alarmed. "Where'd he go?"

Koto growled and darted forward, grabbing Riley by the back of the shirt and pulling her up into a sitting position. Her head bowed forward, rolling on her neck.

"I don't know, but we need to get out of here, now!" Reihu moved forward as well, scooping Rhuben up into his arms. "Before someone attacks us, and you know that someone will."

"Let's go." Tapeworm agreed as he moved forward and pulled Riley from Koto's grasp, lifting him up into his arms as well. "We have to get out of here." He waited for Ursa and the other guardians to disappear back into their Masters and Mistresses' bodies before hurrying out of the suite.

The large group raced through the hotel and out onto the street before they broke up into two groups and running in two different directions; one towards the outskirts of the city, and the other towards the Boston harbor.

* * *

"Why are we going to the Boston Harbor?" Reihu asked as he followed Tapeworm through the back alleys of the streets. "What's there that's going to help us?"

"I don't know," Tapeworm admitted, shifting Riley in his arms. She stirred and mumbled something under her breath. "I think she's coming to." He said to Reihu as the two slowed down to catch their breath. He turned back to Reihu to answer his question. "The way I see it, the further we get away from the city, the better it will be for the innocent people."

"But what about being caught, the Boston Harbor isn't really a place that people don't go." Reihu reminded him.

"At this point, I don't care how many people see us; we don't have many safe places to go anymore." Tapeworm replied, shaking his head. He set Riley down onto the ground. "But I've been through these alleyways a lot, and they always connect to one another, so it would be harder to have a fight back here, without causing so much destruction."

"Doesn't mean that that's going to stop them." Reihu said.

_Maybe splitting up wasn't such a good idea. _Tapeworm thought with a heavy sigh. _Zack would know what to do._ He stiffened for a second, as Ursa's voice filled his head, yelling at him to watch out. Tapeworm surged forward and grabbed onto Riley, jumping backwards, next to Reihu as something crashed into the ground in front of him.

A tall girl with auburn hair smirked as she stood up, removing her first from the ground, and shaking it out. "Zhane was right, I _would_ find you here."

"Leslie," Tapeworm murmured under his breath, causing Leslie's green eyes to turn towards him. He growled. Before he and his friends were split up, he and Max had been fighting her, and she was definitely much stronger than he thought. _We definitely have to be on our guard._

"Sorry, I don't have any use for you," Leslie said to Tapeworm before turning her gaze to Reihu. "I've fought him before, but now I need to fight you. Zhane says that we need to get rid of you all first, you keep getting in the way. You keep spilling out secrets."

"Get out of here," Reihu called over to Tapeworm.

"YOU'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE!" Leslie screamed so loud her voice echoed. "IF YOU DON'T FIGHT ME, I WILL KILL BOTH OF THEM, THEN YOUR LITTLE GIRLFRIEND!"

Reihu looked down at Rhuben, then over at Riley and Tapeworm as he thought about what to do. Leslie let out a low, throaty laugh, when she realized that she had them right where she wanted them. She held her right hand a few inches away from her side as she started to walk towards Reihu. She looked up and examined Reihu's face, her eyes dark. "Do you even know why you are here," She asked smirking. "Why you were put here on earth?"

"No more then you do," he replied.

"To die," Leslie slowly moved her right hand to up, causing Reihu to step back warily. "Okay, now I will end this," Reihu continued backing away slowly, still holding onto Rhuben, who lay limp in his arms. Leslie's hands started to glow green; she raised them into the air and shot a large ball of energy towards them.

Reihu lifted his foot and kicked Tapeworm on the hip, pushing the other boy away, and propelling himself backwards and away from the blast of energy. As Reihu fell back onto the ground, he protected Rhuben's body with his, watching as the green orb of energy hit the ground. His shielded his eyes as a brilliant bright light showed, then pulled them away as it disappeared, revealing a huge crater in the ground. He heard a cry of rage and turned just in time to see Leslie jump up into the air, heading towards him.

He was too slow to move out of the way, so he concentrated hard, allowing some of the lion genes in him to kick in, giving him paws, a tail, and his lion instincts. As Leslie neared him, he waited until a she was a few breaths away, and then lifted his head.

Reihu's fist and Leslie's face collided.

Leslie was knocked to the ground, but quickly forced herself back up. There were three gashes in her cheek, but she didn't seem bothered by them. She just came back, ready for another attack. By the time Leslie was up, Reihu had his hand glowing with a dark aura around it. Leslie charged at Reihu. Once again, he waited for his time to strike.

"Judgment of Hades" Reihu called, pointing to the ground, and then pointed up at Leslie.

A black wave of energy flew towards her, but Leslie was ready. She let out another cry of rage as she spread her arms, sending a wave of green energy towards his attack, immediately diminishing it. The ground in front of him disappeared in the attack and Reihu had to quickly back up, so he wouldn't fall into the crater.

Leslie jumped back, giving herself some space.

"Hn..." Reihu said while breathing in the cold air. He turned and gently set Rhuben on the ground, before shaking out his body, getting loose, getting ready for the next attack.

"Aww, now the kitty wants to fight," Leslie tightened her hands into fists. "Let's see if you can fight me in the air!" Wings made of the energy that coursed through Leslie's body created wings that slid out of Leslie's back. She jumped up and started to fly over Reihu's head.

Reihu took a couple of steps back, and waited for the right moment to strike. When Leslie took another pass over his head, and started to fly away gain, Reihu started running forward on all fours, quickly catching up to her. Using the power from his back legs, Reihu leapt up into the air and landed on Leslie's back, causing her to sink a little, due to the extra weight.

"Ugh, get off me!" Leslie dove to the ground repeatedly, trying to get Reihu off of her back.

Reihu took the chance and moved forward, sinking his teeth into Leslie's shoulders as well as digging his nails into her skin. He smiled in satisfaction as Leslie let out a screech of pain. She continued to dive bomb, over and over again, swinging this way and that, trying to loosen him. In turn, Reihu grabbed onto Leslie's wings; he planted his feet on Leslie's back and propelled himself off, his hands glowing black as he did so.

Leslie screamed as her wings disappeared against the power of the energy blasts he had sent into her back. Her skin ripped open from the force of the attack, causing blood to splatter across Reihu's face. Reihu landed on the ground on his feet, as Leslie crashed face first in the ground.

A cloud of dirt surrounded her.

Reihu summoned all the energy he could muster around his fist and ran towards her. As the cloud of dirt cleared up Jack could see a dark aura coming from Leslie's body. Leslie lifted her head; her face covered in dirt and blood and started to smirk.

As Reihu neared her, a wolf shot out of the aura Leslie had created. The beast pinned Reihu onto the ground. Reihu reached up and had his hands on the werewolf's jaw, trying to keep it from ripping his face off. The werewolf growled and continued to surge forward, trying to nip at his face. Reihu had to conjure up the strength he had left and tried to push the beast off of him.

"Reihu!" Tapeworm suddenly called. "Lookout!"

"DARK DARTS!"

Reihu closed his eyes and brought his hands down as the wolf on him suddenly exploded. He turned his head to the side and opened his eyes just in time to see the ball of darkness energy fly forward and hit Leslie in the chest. She skidded back a few feet, her eyes narrowing before she disappeared in a flash of bright green light.

"You ok?" Rhuben appeared at Reihu's side, her face set in a look of concern. She reached down and grabbed Reihu's hand, lifting him to his feet. "Are you ok?" she repeated.

"Why'd you do that?" Reihu asked. "I had her." He wiped blood off of his mouth. "And don't say any of that 'Once a DarkLion, always a DarkLion' shit." He added, repeating her words from moths before.

Rhuben looked back at him, and smirked. "Why do you think?"

* * *

**A/N: Yep, they split up, but they had to. Crystal definitely wasn't going to go anywhere without her dad and her brother, and of course to add some more drama to it I needed Cody and Bailey to go with her. But then I decided it would be Koto, Zack, Patrick, Max and Noah in one group, Riley, Rhuben, Tapeworm, and Reihu would be together (along with the rest of WingzCorp split up between the groups) just so they all wouldn't have to worry about them targeting only Zack and Cody at one time. I hope it was made clear. **

**There's going to be a fight in every chapter from now on, but that doesn't mean that they're all going to be long drawn out ones, some will be longer than others, but I'm trying to write them in a different way, so I hope you can tell me what you think of the fight scene in this chapter. Alright, I got some TapewormxMax in here, BaileyxCodyxCrystal will appear in the next chapter, and I got some ReihuxRhuben in here as well, I hope you guys enjoyed that.**

**Also, starting with the next chapter, I'll have a song/or songs that I'll mention at the top of the chapter that you can listen to while you read the chapter, so it adds to the ambience/tension/tone whathaveyou. Oh and Julius and Maddie WILL return, I made them disappear suddenly, but what they were doing is important as well. Everyone will find out about the 'traitor' thing in the next chapter.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	54. I see how hard it is for them to do this

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

* * *

"Why are you guys avoiding me like the plague?" Crystal demanded as she stopped walking, ducking low behind a fence. She looked through the gaps in the lining of the fence and sighed wistfully as she spotted a little boy and his puppy walking through the backyard.

They were on their way to her house, to find Christian, Core, and Aaron; and it was Cody's idea to go the long way around, just in case someone tried to attack them on the way there. That way they didn't bring any attention on themselves when they didn't need it. Part of her wished that they were still fighting people from WingzCorp, that way they would put up a battle barrier and nothing would happen to the people outside of it; but she couldn't do anything about it now, she supposed.

Crystal turned around and looked at Bailey and Cody, who were standing a few feet away, catching their breath and drinking some water that Cody had conjured. Cody dropped his hand as soon as she asked the question, dropping water onto the ground.

"What do you mean?" He asked innocently, running a hand through his hair.

"Don't play dumb with me," Crystal replied, crossing her arms over her chest. "I can tell whenever there's a weird tension in the air, half the time I'm around my cousins it happens." She spoke to Cody, but turned her eyes to Bailey. "And the tension isn't coming from you, Cody, but from her."

"I have a name," Bailey said defiantly.

"I know that," Crystal replied shortly. "And at this point, I don't care, because all I care about is why I can feel tension around me as thick as a loaf of bread!" Her eyes flashed and Cody and Bailey turned to each other for a moment before letting out a sigh and turning back to Crystal.

"You see," Cody started. "What's up is-"

"No," Crystal held up a hand, cutting him off. She turned and pointed a finger at Bailey. "I want to hear her say it; I know it has to do with her."

"Ok," Bailey wrung her hands together. "But this may make you upset," Crystal's dark eyebrows rose, as she waited. "Well, before all of this really started happening, Geneva told me that there was someone in our group that we couldn't trust. And for a while she wouldn't tell me, but the one day that you, Cody, and Sydney came to get me so we could have a meeting, she said it was one of you three. I knew pretty fast that it wasn't Cody…"she took a deep breath. "But then when it came to you and Syd-"

"Wait a minute?" Crystal pinched the bridge of her nose. "You thought that _me_ or _Sydney _would want to betray everything that we have ever worked for?" She lifted her head, suddenly strangely calm. "You think that just because Geneva says that you can't trust one of us, that we'll do something bad or stab everyone in the back? Did she say _why _you can't trust us? Did she say that we can't be trusted because we'd do something bad or because we wouldn't listen to something that Zack told us to do, but things turned out right anyway? You think that Syd or I would actually do that?"

Bailey fell silent. She hadn't thought about that. "Listen," she wiped her hands on the sides of her pants. "I know that you don't like me, and I don't know why, but you don't. And I know that I really jumped to conclusions about whether or not you can be trusted and-"

"Forget it," Crystal cut her off, her calm tone seeming very weird. "Let's keep going."

She turned on her heel and continued to trek through the backyard of the middle class houses that lined the street of a quiet neighborhood. Cody paused for a moment before following her; Bailey fell in step beside him. "I know that most people would give up trying to be her friend at his point, but I'm not going to." Bailey said to Cody in a low voice. "We're going to need each other's help at one point or another, and even if she doesn't trust me, I'm going to be there for her."

"That's one of the things that I admire about you Bailey," Cody said truthfully, looking at the ground. "Even when the odds are stacked against you, you'll keep trying to make things work." He paused as he stiffened, his eyes darting around. Up ahead, Crystal had stopped walking as well, her head tilted back and looking towards the sky. "RUN!" Cody suddenly yelled, charging forward.

Bailey ran behind him as fast as she could, shrieking as a large bolt of energy blasted at the ground behind them, sending a shower of clumps of dirt and grass everywhere. Cody reached out and grabbed onto her hand.

"Don't let go." He instructed and started running even faster.

When it came to being an elemental, you got enhanced speed. If you weren't an elemental and someone was and they ran by you, all you would see is a blur of color moving by you at the speed of a blink. But if you ever held onto someone that was an elemental as they ran at their top speed, you would never be able to describe it. To Bailey, it felt similar to the feeling of a car moving very fast, being pushed back into your seat. But since she was holding onto Cody's arm, her feet were lifted off of the ground and she was behind held up in the air behind him as he ran. But even as they were moving at top speed, everything around them seemed to be moving in slow motion.

Bailey looked up in time to see Crystal turn around, her hands glowing blue. She reached down and touched the ground and then stood up, moving her arm in an arc. As she did so a thick wall of ice formed, creating a shield. Cody managed to jump over it and duck down, bringing Crystal and Bailey down to the ground.

Bailey gasped at the sound of something crashing against the ice wall, sending ice fragments everywhere. She sat up with Cody and Crystal, looking at the still form of a young girl on the ground.

"Nice thinking, Crys," Cody said with an appreciative nod as he looked over at her.

"Don't congratulate me yet," Crystal commented as Dricer appeared on her shoulder. "Knowing these guys, it's just a trap."

"Then we'll make sure," Cody held out his hand and a bubble of water formed around his hand. It grew bigger and bigger, and with a flick of his wrist; it slid to the front of his hand like a baseball. He brought his arm back and pushed it forward, sending the large water bubble around the girl. He twisted his hand around so his palm was facing the sky and twitched his fingers, bringing the bubble and the girl up into the air.

Crystal then brought her fingers up to her lips and blew on them, allowing a cool wind to exit her mouth and cover the bubble, instantly freezing it. Cody slowly lowered his hand and the bubble continued to float in the air.

"So, what do you propose we do now?" Bailey asked, brushing grass stains off of her clothes. She hesitantly started to walk towards the bubble, by Cody held his arm out, halting her. "What? She's frozen in a bubble; I don't think something's going to happen."

"With these guys, you never know." Dricer commented. He jumped high into the air and grew into his large form before flying over to the ice bubble and flew around it a few times, checking it out. "It doesn't look like there's any-"Dricer suddenly let out a cry of pain as something rocketed into his side.

"Dricer!" Crystal cried, her eyes growing wide as her guardian slammed to the ground.

"What happened?" Bailey gasped.

"Something's not right," Cody moved his hands up to his arms and started to rub them. The hair on the back of his neck started to stand up. He turned around, his eyes darting around to find what had happened to Dricer; what had hit him.

"Drice," Crystal started to move forward, to go to her guardian, but Cody grabbed onto her arm.

"No, don't," Cody whispered, his eyes still moving around. "Don't move and don't make a sound, something's watching us." He felt Bailey move closer to his side as the three moved into a small circle, their backs to each other. He concentrated as hard as he could, trying to pinpoint who or what could have hurt Dricer.

Bailey suddenly let out a low cry and pushed Cody and Crystal to the ground as another orb of green energy shot out of the woods that lines the back of the street and exploded right by her, sending her off of her feet and into the air. She let out a grunt of pain as she flew over the fence and landed hard on her back on the ground.

"What was that?" Bailey groaned as she rolled onto her side.

"Bailey, are you ok?" Cody asked with a cough.

"I'm fine." Bailey replied. She let out a low gasp as she felt that familiar feeling of power moving through her body. Geneva was allowing her to take her powers, something was attacking them and she was going to be needed to help. She got to her feet and crouched low to the ground, starting to hurry back to her friends. She jumped back over the fence as Crystal pulled herself off of the ground and over to Dricer, placing her hands on his side. "How hurt is he?"

She missed Crystal's answer as the ice bubble dropped to the ground, emitting a loud cracking sound, sending ice shards in all directions. Bailey felt the sting of it on her arms as she shielded her face from the blast. When she lowered her arms, she couldn't help but gasp loudly. The girl that was in the bubble was gone.

"What?" Cody gasped, he had seen it too. "Where'd she go?"

"Right here," the girl replied with an enthusiastic giggle as she appeared behind Bailey and Cody. She gave a short wave, her grey eyes shining against her dark skin. "The name's Hillary." Cody instinctively took a step back. "Ah ah ah, don't think that you're going anyway." This time, the voice came from behind him. He turned around and saw Hillary standing behind him.

"How's that-?" He turned back around and Hillary was standing on his other side, her smile growing wider. _She can make copies of herself. That's what hit Dricer in the side._ "Crys, stay on your guard!" He called, not taking his eyes off of her. "She can duplicate herself!"

Crystal lifted her head from Dricer's side, her eyes slowly moving in a circle as Hillary slowly started to form a circle around them. "Drice, you ok?" She asked in a low voice, not wanting to make any sudden movements.

"I'm fine," Dricer replied just as quietly. "Don't worry, I have a plan, just keep pretending like I'm hurt."

"Got it," Crystal replied with an undetectable nod. She slowly got to her feet, holdings her hands at her sides in loose fists. She tossed her hair over her shoulder with a quick flick of her head and narrowed her eyes at Hillary. "So you're one of Zhane's henchmen," she stated and then shrugged. "Don't you think that you could do better?"

"Zhane knows what he's doing," Hillary replied with another giggle, covering her mouth with her hand this time. "He's going to take over the world and make things better for us elementals."

Cody and Crystal tried not to react, Bailey could feel it. Did that mean that everything that they had known before was a lie? Did he really want to make things better for elementals, or was he just trying to rule the world for his selfish gain.

_How can we tell that she's telling the truth? _Bailey cracked her knuckles nervously. _And if he is, at what expense is Zhane willing to go to make things better for elements? Will he try to get rid of humans at the same time? _Movement caught Bailey's attention and she looked out of the corner of her eye, to see the little boy in the backyard walking closer to him. _Oh no, oh please don't let her do anything to that little boy._

Just as Bailey finished her thought, Hillary turned her attention to him, still giggling uncontrollably. She raised her hands above her head and sent a large blast of energy towards him. Bailey slapped her hands over her ears at the sound of his pained scream and the dogs' yelp before all was quiet. Bailey started to shake with disgust and rage.

_It's time for you to fight, Little One; you're going to do well._

Bailey clenched her hands into fists and started running towards Hillary, her blood rushing through her veins. She briefly heard Cody and Crystal yelling for her to come back, but she couldn't stop. Hillary faltered a bit; somewhat surprised that someone would try to confront her. But she regained her composure and fell into a fighting stance.

"Bailey!" Cody started forward.

"Not so fast," Hillary shot out her right arm and a black/purple ball of energy shot out and encompassed him, lifting him up into the air. "I'm saving you for later," she closed her hand into a fist and Cody let out a scream of pain as black energy coursed through his body. "As for you two…"

_Two_? Bailey looked over her shoulder to see Crystal _skating_ behind her. She was throwing patches of ice on the ground and using it to skate towards her. Bailey turned her attention back to Hillary and brought her arm back. When she thrust it forward, a white ball of energy shot out and headed right towards Hillary.

Bailey's eyes widened as Hillary seemed to dematerialize in front of her. Crystal suddenly slammed into her back, putting an arm around her waist, pulling Bailey to the side.

"Crystal Freeze!" She called, arcing an arm through the air. Icicles appeared in the air and shot down towards Hillary, who managed to move out of the way again, appearing to the left of Crystal and Bailey. As the two watched, she multiplied herself until there was a small circle of her copies surrounding Crystal and Bailey. "Shit!"

"What's the plan?" Bailey asked, clenching her hands into fists and falling into a loose fighting stance. She never had to fight before and she was hoping that she never had to. She didn't even fight back when a bully had pushed her over when she was 3. She just ignored her and went back to playing in the mud. But things were different now; she was partially responsible for the well being of the world.

"We never really have plans besides trying not to get killed," Crystal replied a second before launching herself towards the girl in front of her. "Ice Punch!" Her fist was encased in a mold of ice and she swung forward, hitting Hillary across the face. She ducked low to the ground and brought her foot up, hitting another one in the middle of her stomach. She twisted to the side as Hillary shot a ball of energy towards her and created a shield of ice, before sending it back at her. She let out a grunt of pain as she was grabbed by the arm and pulled in an arc through the air, slamming on her front.

Bailey gasped in pain as she was punched in the stomach. The wind was almost knocked out of her, but she was still strong enough so she was able to regain her strength. She whipped her arm around, trying to hit Hillary in the face, but she moved faster than Bailey could, hitting her in the face and the legs, knocking her to the ground. She tried kicking at her, but was punched in the chest once again.

_Now, I see how hard it is for them to do this every day. _Bailey thought to herself as she wrapped her arms around her body, groaning. She looked up at Hillary through a glare as four of her copies formed a small circle around her, still giggling.

"What do you want?"Bailey demanded painfully, her hand on his chest. "What do you want from me?"

"Well, it's not what _I_ want exactly," Hillary replied as she lightly tapped her chin. "It's more like what I'm _supposed_ to do." She grinned. "And what I'm _supposed_ to do is follow orders. Zhane's orders. And his orders are to capture you." She sniffed loudly. "So let's make this easy for me and sit still while I bash your head in."

Bailey instinctively started to move backwards, briefly wondering why no one in the house was running out into the yard to see what had happened to their son. In the back of her mind, she had an idea that something had happened to them as well; sending another wave of rage to fill her veins.

"You have two seconds to agree or I'm going to get very violent," Hillary snarled, her eyes turning to slits. Bailey swallowed thickly and turned to look behind her again. Cody was still stuck in his bubble, watching the two of them with wide eyes, throwing himself against the side of bubble, using all his weight, getting more hysterical each time. "Time's up!" she declared and jumped into the air, kicking Bailey in the chest as two of her copies grabbed onto Bailey's arms and held her still.

_Concentrate hard,_ Geneva said. _You have the power, you know you do. Just go with the feeling. Concentrate hard and you can do great things._

Bailey closed her eyes, allowing her body to gather up the power that she could feel in her body. She let out a shout as the energy blew out of her in a white dome of power. Hillary crashed against it and went flying backwards through the air as two of her copies let out screams and were blasted to the side, losing their grips on Bailey's arms.

"You're not going to beat me!" Hillary screeched a twisted smile on her face.

"DEMON CLAW!" Dricer hurled through the air and slashed a large paw at the side of Hillary's head. She let out a scream of pain as the gashes ripped open her side, sending blow flowing to the ground.

"Thanks Dricer," Bailey wiped blood from her mouth as she got to her feet. She looked over her shoulder and saw Crystal get hit in the stomach with a hard kick, and she was moving slowly to get to her feet.

"Ice Storm!" Dricer flapped his wings and an icy wind blew two of the copies back against the ground.

"ENOUGH!" Hillary ignored the blood dripping down the side of her body, fixing her vacant eyes on Bailey. All of the copies except for the one attacking Crystal disappeared. "I'm tired of this! Time for you to _die_!"

She charged forward and kicked Bailey in the chest. As the brunette stumbled back, Hillary grabbed her by the shirt and punched her in the stomach and then across the face. Bailey fell back on the ground and Hillary jumped on top of her, holding onto the front of her shirt and growling.

Bailey's head swam as he tried to focus on not blacking out. She knew that Hillary was stronger than him and that there wasn't much else that she could do. Hillary grinned evilly as she grabbed onto Bailey's neck and started to squeeze.

Frantically, Bailey tried to throw Hillary off of her, as the edge of her vision swam.

Hillary squeezed harder, her grin growing malicious.

Bailey heard her psychotic giggle one more time before she passed out…

* * *

**A/N: I'm soooooooo sorry it took me a bit to get this chapter out. I actually had a hard time with writing it in a way that I liked, and there's still some things I don't really like about it, but I hope you guys do.**

**So if my calculations are correct there are 11 chapters left to this story. Chapter 64 is the "final battle" which has will be a really long chapter. And Chapter 65 is the epilogue. I can't believe the story is almost over, but it's not done yet, there was a battle in this chapter and there will be another battle in the next chapter. Because this chapter was focused on Cody, Crystal, and Bailey; the next one will focus on Zack, Max, Patrick, Noah, and Koto; which will have an even bigger battle than the past few chapters.**

**Don't worry; the Crystal not liking Bailey thing will have its conclusion by the end of the story. I hope that I do it in a way that is real to both of their characters' personalities as well as leaving you guys satisfied with it. Plus, I realized that I had changed Bailey's personality a bit, so I hope that I brought it back in this chapter. The next time it shows Cody, Bailey, and Crystal, it will have them at Christian's house and interacting there. Like I had said before, the 64****th**** chapter will be a long one with a big battle, and the 65****th**** one will be an epilogue.**

**Oh and don't worry, you'll see Bailey's family before the story ends.**

**I hope you liked it and I'll update again soon.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	55. Hard to say goodbye

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

* * *

Zack sighed as he looked at the house that lined the quiet street. They were all empty, or looked like they had become abandoned quickly in the last couple of days. It didn't surprise him really, when his mom and dad had left, he knew that nothing was ever going to be the same. The center of the element problems had always been Boston, but now that it was getting worse and that the government was getting into it, it was scaring people away.

It wouldn't even surprise Zack if in the next few days army men and tanks rolled through Boston, wanting to set up camp to try and capture anything and everything element/elemental related. Especially since Core was the one that had, in some way/shape/form brought it to Boston. But at least he stumbled upon it on accident and then brought it over while trying to keep his friends' families safe. At least he had a good reason for it.

"Hey Zack, we need to take a rest," Patrick called ahead to the blonde teen. "We've been walking for hours and nothing has attacked us yet, I think we'll be fine."

Zack turned to insist that they keep going, but when he saw how tired everyone looked. Max was leaning against Noah's side, gasping for air, and even Koto was slumped on the ground on his stomach, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he panted for air.

"Yeah," he said, realizing that his feet were throbbing along with the beat of his heart. "It's a good idea, let's rest for a while." He smiled a little at Patrick's over-the-top sigh of relief as he fell to the ground, stretching out on his back.

"Are you ok, dude?" Max asked as she gave Noah a short smile before walking over to Zack, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You seem really out of it?"

"No," Zack shook his head innocently. "I'm fine, Max. Really."

Max raised her eyebrows skeptically. "So you're so okay that you basically sprinted away from the Tipton like your clothes were on fire?" She then gave a wry smile. "Which would be kind of ironic, but still." Her smile dropped and she looked at Zack seriously. "What's going on?"

"A lot of things, Max," Zack replied as he ran a hand over his face. "A lot of things, most of which have, you know, to deal with the fact that I or you guys could be killed at any second of any day, but other than that, I'm great."

Max knew he was being sarcastic, and unnecessarily rude, but didn't call him out on it. She knew that he needed to blow off some steam, and as they were currently running away from Halo Syndicate, who were always chasing after them, it was all that he could do without bringing death upon himself. _Besides, being the leader of everyone can't be that easy._

"Just sit down and rest," Max forcibly pushed Zack onto the ground before sitting down with the others as well. She let out a sigh as Canis appeared on her lap. Max smiled as she ran a hand over her guardian's back. "I hope the others are ok, we haven't heard anything from them yet."

"I'm sure they're fine," Noah said quietly, although he couldn't help but look down at his watch, a frown on his face.

Zack noticed and mustered up a bright smile. "Hey, don't worry," he tried to reassure him. "I'm sure that Sydney is ok."

"It's not Sydney that I'm worried about," Noah replied as he lowered his hand back to the ground. "He can take care of himself perfectly fine, I'm worried about Riley and Rhuben, and you know they don't think before they get into fights. I'm not sure how well they'd do with listening to Tapeworm." Nonetheless, he gave a fond smile.

"Well, if we're done being negative-nellies," Patrick twisted around behind him and dragged a drawstring bag up onto his lap. "Let's get something to eat." He opened the bag and turned it upside down, dumping an assortment of candies, sandwiches, chips, and even some of the more outlandish bits of food out onto the ground.

Koto sprang to his feet and padded closer, sniffing loudly.

"Whoa," Max laughed as she reached forward and grabbed a ham and cheese sandwich. "How did you get this?" She asked and then shook her head. "_When_ did you get this?"

"You don't have the enhanced ability of speed for nothing," Patrick replied with a modest shrug. He then beamed. "Besides, I figured that if we were going to be gone for a while, and if we didn't find a house to stay in, it would probably be a good idea if we grabbed food." His smile faded. "I don't think that when people were moving out they thought about bringing food with them, but you never know for sure."

"Good thinking, Patrick," Zack stated as he grabbed a sandwich for himself and started to tear into it.

"Zack," Noah grabbed the older teen's attention. He ripped off a piece of a sandwich and held it out to SilverTatsu, who appeared on his shoulder. "What will you be doing once this is all done?" He turned back to Zack. "Will you go back to the SS Tipton and finish school? Or will you just go and do whatever you want to have fun?"

Zack blinked, surprised. Ever since this whole elements thing started, he never thought about what life would be like when (and if) everything went back to normal. He didn't care about school much when he was in middle school and being an elemental just made his grades dip even lower (when Cody wasn't helping him). But he had to admit, becoming an elemental had given him a sense of responsibility that he (mostly) used when he was on the SS Tipton after the Jacksons had left again. But he never thought about things going back to normal; he never thought about having his powers, about not having Blazen, about not having fun with the powers that he had to make things easier, none of that at all.

"I don't know," he replied honestly. "The only thing that I had thought about was telling Mom and Dad about what had been going on," he shrugged. "And you saw hoe that turned out, they couldn't get out of here fast enough." He thought for a moment and shook his head, trying not to get distracted by his bitterness. "Maybe I'll go to college."

"I'm sorry, but doesn't that seem more like something that _Cody _would do?" Max teased as she grabbed another sandwich and held it out to Canis, who quickly wolfed it down.

"I can get into college if I want to," Zack declared.

"Yeah, if you actually study."

"Haha," Zack rolled his eyes and turned back to Patrick and Noah. "What about you guys?" His smile faded. "Riley told me that you guys were thinking of stopping singing. Why would you do that?"

"Ah, I was wondering when that was going to come up," Patrick drew his knees up to his chest, his movement catching Koto's attention. "We haven't decided yet but for a long time we've been thinking of retiring because of everything that we've had to do as well as everything that we have gone through the past 8 or 9 years." He shrugged. "Everything's just been so hectic and we haven't really felt like we wanted to sing anymore, so we were thinking of quitting."

"I know what you mean," Max said gently. "You haven't been able to have any time to act like kids because if you weren't working, you were trying to keep someone from getting hurt." She shook her head. "It's surprising that you were able to have time to record and everything."

"A lot of time management," Patrick replied as he scratched the back of his head, looking embarrassed. "And having these abilities helped as well." Noah nodded silently in reply. "But we always knew that helping others and keeping innocent people from getting hurt or tested on was the more important thing to do, so we made that our top priority." He licked his lips and turned away for a moment, giving a fond smile as ThunderTatsu climbed up onto his head and nestled down into his hair. "What about you, Max? What are you plans?"

"Well," Max let out a sigh as her shoulders slumped. "I was thinking of trying to go pro for soccer," she said. "I mean, while we were back here and in between the times that we were making sure that our Mom and Dad weren't targeted, Tapeworm and I talked a lot about what our future plans were going to be," she blushed a little. "Together and not together, because you know that's just as smart as Cody, he's probably going to get into Harvard and I would probably go to a smaller school so we have to deal with that." She motioned to Zack. "But like him, I never really thought about what life would be like without having these powers, because I'm so used to them."

Zack nodded, falling silent once more. He had thought about it over and over again, and had even gotten into a fight with his brother about it before they had left the Tipton. Had getting these powers really helped them or had it just caused everything that they had ever known to implode in their faces? _You can't think of that now, Zack. Just be glad that for once in your life, you're having a normal conversation and acting like a human again. _

"Just because you have powers doesn't mean that you're not human," Noah commented, startling Zack out of his thoughts. "It just means that it's harder for you to act your age."

"How do you do that?" Zack asked with a low chuckle. "I mean, I know that you guys are perceptive and everything, but being able to read my mind like that is scary."

"I could just tell from the look on your face," Noah shrugged modestly. "And it's not like I haven't thought about it before." He held Zack's gaze. "And Cody's fine, you would know it if he wasn't. Trust me, for a while Halo Syndicate isn't going to go after you guys, they're going to go after the rest of us and then you two last because they know that you would be harder to get rid of." He sighed. "So if we're going to get into a fight-"

"-Which we inevitably will-"Patrick broke in.

"-It's better if we leave Zack as the last line of defense." Noah continued.

Zack tried not to let his frustration show. The last time that had happened Hayden had almost gotten rid of Riley, by using his own sword against him. And he would be damned if he was going to let that happen again.

Max noticed his frustration almost immediately. "You have to admit that he had a point, Zack," she said firmly. "They're either going to try and somehow keep you trapped and use you last, or they're going to kill you at the first chance they get, so you might as well try and hang back until we actually need your help."

Zack let out a grunt.

"So," Max got to her feet, brushing off the seat of her pants. "I think we should get into one of those houses," she gestured behind her. "And get some well needed sleep; I'd at least like to be able to have gotten some rest before we fight."

Koto got to his feet and shook his fur out before padding across the street over to one of the bigger houses. He sniffed around the front door for a minute before pushing his head against the front door, which opened, and he slipped inside.

"I think it's empty." Patrick said dryly as he shoved the leftover food back into his back.

"Huh, what gives you that idea?" Canis replied sarcastically as she shook out her fur herself, waiting for Max to gather her stuff together. She then turned to Blazen, SilverTatsu, and ThunderTatsu. "I think that for the next few hours we should each keep watch over the house to make sure that nothing tries to sneak up on us."

"Good idea," ThunderTatsu agreed and the three guardians moved into their full forms. ThunderTatsu spread out his wings and snorted a cloud of smoke pouring out of his nostrils. "I'll go first."

"Good on ya, bud," Patrick patted ThunderTatsu on the back. "Let out a roar or something if you see or feel anything coming."

"Let's go," Zack grabbed his bag and he, Patrick, Noah, and Max followed Koto across the street and slipped into the house, making sure there was no one around watching them as they did so.

Zack walked through the foyer, looking around the house as Patrick, Noah, and Max went up the stairs, probably looking for beds to sleep in. Zack looked around the spacious living room, spotting Koto sitting on the floor, curled up in a ball and already asleep. He looked around at the furnishing of the room and smirked a little. _The fight hasn't even gotten out this far and they leave a house like this? _All of a sudden a feeling of drowsiness washed over Zack and he went over to the couch and flopped down onto it.

He was asleep in less than two minutes.

* * *

It was approaching dawn when they were attacked.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Zack heard a low whistling sound. Before he could even open his eyes, there was a loud explosion and he felt himself being lifted off of the couch and thrown across the room. Zack hit the ground with a gasp of pain, feeling the heat of fire behind his back. He rolled onto his stomach and looked up to see a fire had taken over the living room. Choking on the smoke, he looked up to see a hole in the ceiling of the living room.

Hearing a growl beside him, Zack saw that Koto looked ok, but his eyes were narrowed into slits, his lips were pulled back in a snarl, and his hackles were raised. As Zack continued to look at him, his growling got louder and louder. Finally, Koto tilted his head back, let out a howl and went charging through the fire towards the front door.

"_I think they're going to need our help, Zack,"_ Blazen's voice filled his head.

"Gee, you think?" Zack got to his feet and raced after Koto. He couldn't help but give a short smile of amusement as Koto took a flying leap and knocked the door to the ground before disappearing outside. Zack ran after him, sliding his wings out of his back and leaping into the air as soon as he stepped foot outside the door.

He turned around and watched, oddly detached, as he watched the house burn. It wasn't until he heard a cry of pain that he turned around, Blazen appearing at his side in his full form, and saw Patrick, Noah, Max, and Koto viciously fighting off someone.

"What should we do, Zack?" Blazen asked as the two slowly flew closer. "They said for us to wait back, but I don't think I can watch my friends getting hurt like this."

"I know Blazen, but it's what we have to do," Zack replied quietly. It was hurting his guardian almost as much as it was hurting him (due to the fact that they shared each other's feelings). He didn't like having his friends being in trouble and being so helpless about it.

"LOOK OUT!" Blaze swung his wings towards Zack, pushing him back from the force of the wind as a large thunder ball blew right between them.

Zack turned and watched as Patrick and Noah flew their way at top speeds. "I called to you," Patrick explained as they had gotten closer. His right eye was swollen shut and he had a large scratch across his chest that was bleeding. Noah didn't look much better, he had a bruise on the left side of his jaw, and his right arm had been broken, as it was hanging limply at his side. "Ashley was about to attack you, but I didn't think you heard me."

"Another one of Zhane's henchmen." Zack stated.

Noah nodded. "She has the power of shadows," he looked towards the ground. "Max and Koto are doing their best at keeping her shadow people busy while we try to fight Ashley." He added and turned around, his eyes scanning the air. "Because it's still dark, she can easily get around."

"But that doesn't mean that we still can't find her," Patrick commented as he started to glow yellow. His pupils changed until they were into slits, like lizard's eyes. "Even though she has the power of shadows, it doesn't mean that she doesn't have a shadow herself."

As soon as he finished, lightning crackled and started to shoot from the sky to the ground. Zack, Blazen, and Noah back peddled as a bolt of lightning shot through the center of their circle. Noah flipped his overgrown hair out of his face as he turned to Patrick with an odd expression on his face.

"You know, bro, the weather forecast didn't say anything about there being a lightning storm." He commented.

Patrick smiled back in reply.

"Guys, let me help," Zack pleaded. "I can't just sit back and watch as Ashley uses her shadow powers against you." He jumped as a lightning bolt struck a tree, immediately causing it to burst into flames. He motioned to the tree. "Especially if he can't control where he's aiming."

"Hey," Patrick stopped glowing. "You try to get, like, thirteen bursts of lighting going at once, it's not as easy as it looks!"

"I don't think it's a good idea," Noah shook his head. "We already told you, they're going after _you _and-"Zack ignored him and took off towards the ground. Noah sighed heavily as Blazen followed after him. "Why did I actually think that he would listen to me?" He held out his hand. "Thorned Affection." His large hammer appeared in a flash of light.

"I have no idea," Patrick replied and held out his hand. "CursedDragon!" A large scythe appeared in his hands and he twirled it around for a second. "But he's going to need some help!" He turned his head. "ThunderTatsu!" His guardian appeared at his side. "You and SilverTatsu help Max and Koto with the shadow people, Zack, Noah, and I will deal with Ashley."

"Yes, Master Patrick."

Patrick and Noah flew to the ground, their wings sliding back into their backs as soon as their feet connected with the ground, and they ran after Zack, as he caught up with Ashley. His hands were both on fire and he was glaring at the teenage girl.

"Ah, finally, the guy that I've been looking for." Ashley stated as her grey eyes flashed. "Who knew that you would let yourself come out of hiding to die?" She smirked and waved her hands, shadow people appearing all around her. They were as tall as a grown man, but they had no faces. "It at least makes my job easier."

"Solar Flare!" Zack held his hands a few inches apart and moved them out as a large fireball grew. He waited until it was big enough and then started to squeeze the fire ball. It, in turn, shot out a barrage of fire balls, striking the shadow people and causing them to implode as they were hit.

"Thunder Blitz!" Patrick shot out balls of electricity that crashed into the shadow people that shocked them, causing them to explode.

"SilverWind!" Noah conjured a strong gust of wind that held orbs of energy in them. They whipped around a few shadow people, bringing them together in a mini tornado, before the blasts of energy hit the shadow people, destroying them as well.

Zack then ran forward and aimed a punch at Ashley's face. She merely grabbed his wrist, kicked him in the side, and tossed him away from her. Zack rolled across the ground a few years before getting back to his feet and trying again.

"FLAME WING!" Blazen appeared above them, the tips of his wings on fire. As he swung his wings down, flames shot towards Ashley. Blazen then followed after her as she rolled out of the way of the flames, and he raked his talons across her face.

Zack grunted as he spun on his heel and kicked with his right foot, slamming it right into the middle of Ashley's chest. She let out a grunt of pain and went flying back from the force of the kick, landing on her back on the ground. Patrick and Noah leapt after her.

"MEGATON DRIVE!" Noah slammed his hammer onto the ground, sending a wave of energy crashing into her and sending her farther back.

"VOLT SWING!" Patrick swung his scythe, cutting the air in an arc and the energy from the swing crashed into her once more.

"Yes," Zack whispered under his breath, breathing heavily as he watched her get hit once more. He slowly started to walk over to her, slowly starting to frown. _Wait a minute that was too easy. She couldn't have just been defeated like that. _"Keep your guard up!" He called to Patrick and Noah as they slowly crept towards her.

Ashley laughed to herself as she lifted herself to her feet, like a woman possessed. She stood up, and raised a hand, slowly giving them a finger wave. Before Zack's eyes, she slowly started to disappear in a dark glow, starting from her feet and moving up her body.

"What?" Patrick cried, his eyes widening as well.

"She was a shadow person," Noah gasped.

Zack whipped around, looking for the real person that they were trying to fight. He spotted her at the same time that she looked at him from up in a tree. She didn't seem to notice that burning embers that were close by her. She just held up a hand that glowed green and turned her gaze down to Max, who was dutifully fighting a group of shadow people with Canis, which had surrounded them.

"MAX!" Zack shouted.

Too late. Ashley brought her arm back and pushed it forward, sending the ball of green energy onto Max, narrowly missing Canis. Max's agonized scream ripped from her throat as she was hit full force with the energy, being lifted off her feet and deposited on the ground like a rag doll.

Zack stared.

Time slowed down.

The air thickened.

Sound muted.

A feeling of sheer rage and agony filled his body. It couldn't be happening. It wasn't real. Zack mouth opened, but he didn't hear the scream that passed his lips. His legs worked to get through the chaos around him. Patrick, Noah, and their guardians were flying around, flashes of their attacks flying all over the place as they continued to attack the shadow people. He wasn't sure if they had even noticed that Max had been hurt of if they were just too busy, but he kept running. Some trees were on fire and the acrid smoke that hung through the air gave everything a surreal effect. But Zack moved through it as though it wasn't there. His eyes were locked onto a single spot. Locked onto a single person. His breathing was labored. His heart was working overtime. His muscles were screaming.

Another shadow person stepped between him and his destination. The shadow person tried to send a ball of energy towards Zack, but he just knocked its arm to the side, and raised his fist as it burst into flames. He shoved his arm forward so his fist went right through the shadow person, causing him to implode. Then Zack continued running until he reached Max's side.

He slid onto the ground next to her. His knees would hate him the next day, but he didn't care. Zack ran a shaking hand through her hair, his eyes growing wide as he looked over her. Dark brown eyes blinked up at the sky. The light canvas and pure white clouds reflected in her orbs, her chest was heaving up and down as she tried to gather air in her lungs. Zack moved his hand down towards the blood coated shirt. Zack gently wrapped his arms around her body and lifted her up; a sea of blood greeted him.

"No, no, no," Zack breathed, saliva connecting his lips as he spoke. "You're going to be okay, Max." he whispered.

"Mistress," Canis appeared at Max's side and crouched down beside her, frantically licking at her face. "Mistress Max, get up."

Max's fingers wrapped themselves around Zack's wrist. Her brown eyes connected with his blue ones, her bloody lips moved soundlessly. A dribble of blood rolled from the corner of her lips and down her chin. The red cut through the grime of battle, and contrasted with the paling skin.

"Tell Christopher…" she breathed heavily, before coughing lightly. The red line of blood became thicker and a bead of blood rolled off of her chin and onto her neck. She sucked in a deep breath, a tear filling the corner of her eye. "Tell him…that I love him…and…I know you guys…are going to finish this…"

Zack nodded mutely, tightening his grip on Max's body, ignoring the blood as it seeped through his clothes. Max's brown eyes blinked one more time, before losing their focus, growing dark. Her fingers lost their grip and her hand fell to the ground.

"No," Zack whispered. This was what he didn't want to happen. He never wanted to see his friends die, not when he was one of the people that were the cause of the whole thing. _That stupid prophecy. _Zack sucked in a deep shuddery breath. "Please, no," Zack gasped. "Please." Tears fell from his eyes. They splashed onto the skin of his fallen friend.

He saw red.

He let go of Max and turned, his sword appearing in his hands, and returned to the battle. He charged towards Ashley and started to swing his sword at her over and over again. He didn't care if he missed; he just allowed his momentum to swing himself around so he could attack her again. He wanted to hurt her for killing one his friends. He wanted to make sure that she never smiled like that at him ever again. Zack's sword burst into flames as he continued to swing at her; he could feel even more energy than he had ever felt before filling his body, along with his rage.

"YOU'RE GOING TO PAY FOR KILLING MY FRIEND!"

Suddenly, Ashley looked very scared.

Zack felt the energy continually filling his body and he didn't have a choice but to release it. He let out a scream of fury, closing his eyes as a dome of fire erupted from his body, pushing Ashley back and catching every tree and bush around them on fire, as well as hitting the shadow people that were near him. Once the dome disappeared, Zack fell to his knees, completely spent of energy. His sword disappeared and he fell onto his hands, breathing heavily.

Ashley slowly pulled herself up off of the ground once more as she stared at Zack with wide eyes. "Zhane was right; you're one of the ones we need…" she got to her feet. "You need to be taken care of, and it needs to be now. No more waiting!" She held her hands over her head and a ball of green energy started to form.

"Zack!" Blazen cried and started to fly towards his Master.

Zack looked up at him and gave a soft smile. He knew that the end was near; he knew that Blazen wasn't going to get to him in time to save him. He turned back to Ashley, as the ball of energy continued to grow to about the size of a small car. She was going to be using a lot of her energy, just to make sure the job got done.

Ashley let out a scream of effort as she threw the ball towards him.

Zack closed his eyes and waited for the contact.

But it didn't come.

He felt himself being pushed back from a shockwave, rolling head over heels a few times before landing on his back. He opened his eyes to see Ashley hovering over him a scowl on her face, before disappearing in a flash of green light.

"Zack," Blazen turned to his small form and flew down, lightly perching on Zack's chest. "Zack, are you ok?" He tilted his head to the side as he waited for Zack's answer. Zack blinked twice before giving a half smile.

"I'm ok, Blazen." He replied and sat up.

He looked over and saw Patrick and Noah walking over to Zack, dragging Koto's body along with him. He wasn't a wolf anymore; he had turned back to his human self. His head was lolling forward and swinging back and forth as they approached him, before slowly setting him on the ground. SilverTatsu, in his human form, then glided over and gently placed Max down beside him. Canis placed her head on Max's stomach and closed her eyes, whimpering loudly.

Zack couldn't bear to look at Max; the way that her sightless eyes continued to look at the sky was going to haunt him for the rest of his life. He went over to Koto and looked down at him before bending down and pressing a hand to his neck. He didn't feel a pulse. He then moved his head and moved his blonde hair back to open his eyes; Koto's green orbs stared lifelessly back at him.

Zack let out a sigh and closed Koto's eyes again, before letting go of his head, allowing it to lull back to the side, making it look like he was merely sleeping.

"Koto jumped in front of you when Ashley had tried to kill you." Noah explained.

Zack nodded quietly.

"What are we going to do now?" Patrick asked.

Zack looked up towards the sky as the sun broke the horizon…

* * *

**A/N: So, I wanted to show a bit of normalcy in these guys, because they're still teenagers when it comes down to it, and I haven't showed it a lot. This was the hardest chapter that I had to write. Killing off Max was really hard and I hope that I showed her death scene in a way that did her justice. I also decided to bring back the fact that Zack and Max had dated before she and Tapeworm did. I also wanted to bring up that no one usually calls Tapeworm by his first name, so I thought it would be perfect to do it here. Now, with Koto's death, I did it in a way that was sort of lax compared to Max's because he had been an enemy of Zack's for a while, but he had redeemed himself in Zack's eyes by jumping in the way of the attack that was meant for Zack that killed him instantly.**

**So for anyone that was wondering, ever since I started this story, I knew that someone had to die and I knew that it couldn't be Zack, Cody, Bailey, Riley, Rhuben, Crystal, or Sydney because they're too important to the story. And because I (accidentally) made it that Max, Tapeworm, and some of the members of WingzCorp had turned in secondary characters (although that's also needed considering how many people I had to write about) that some of them were going to be the ones to die, so…yeah.**

**What did you guys think? I knew that since the beginning that one battle (and tiger002 also had the same idea) the good guys weren't going to win, so I decided to do it sooner rather than later.**

**I'll update again soon.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	56. How messed up was that?

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

* * *

"Why don't we just go to Christian's house?" Reihu suggested as he curled up into a ball, much like a lion did. "I mean, that's where you guys always went whenever we attacked you, and trust me, it's hard to actually break into that barrier that's been put up."

"It's too obvious," Tapeworm replied as he shook his head. He yawned loudly. "Besides, if Halo Syndicate is stronger than WingzCorp, then I'm sure they can find a way to take down the barrier. I don't want to put anyone else in danger while we're there." Ursa let out a sigh and nodded and Tapeworm gently rubbed his head before he stretched out on the grass. "Not that it's going to make a difference, if Halo Syndicate wanted to attack, they aren't going to wait long to do it."

"That's one way that they work differently than WingzCorp." Rhuben agreed, finally speaking up from where she was sitting up in a tree, keeping watch over the skyline. She moved her leg and tilted her head down so she could look at Tapeworm, Reihu, and her sleeping sister. "I don't remember a lot about it, but being in WingzCorp wasn't much different from when Robert was still around. The only difference was that Core fed us a lot more. But he still worked us hard."

Tapeworm nodded and looked over at Riley, who was lying on her stomach, a troubled expression on her face. She had woken up a few minutes after Rhuben had and they refused to talk about what they had seen while they had been under the influence of darkness. He was smart enough not to even bring it up, knowing that he would get a severe tongue lashing in response. It was like WingzCorp, he and the others tried not to bring it up as well as it was a hard topic for their guardians as well as them. But it couldn't have been worse than what it could have been for Reihu. His life was basically a lie, he had been taken away from his family when he was young, had some sort of surgery done on him so he was infused with the attributes of a lion, and then was forced to attack someone he had fallen in love with at one point, and then was told that what he was doing was to protect her and her family.

How messed up was that?

"Don't act like you're doing anyone favors trying to understand what's really going on with WingzCorp and Halo Syndicate." Reihu warned Tapeworm. But it didn't sound malicious; there was no trace of bitterness or snark in his tone at all. "Everything you basically knew before was a lie, so in essence, everything that you ever knew about elementals and that world was a lie. So if you continue to try and find a truth to it, it will cause everything to fall apart." He let out a deep breath. "Trust me; I learned that the hard way."

"The elemental world isn't hard to figure out," Ursa commented as he rolled over onto his stomach, walking off of Tapeworm's lap on all fours. "It's basically the same as this world here, but the only difference is that we have powers, and we all have specific jobs that we do, that goes along with our elements. Like, me and some of the other nature elementals, or whatever you want to call us, we deal with the weather." He paused. "And before Gattaca flipped out and was banished from the elemental world, from what I can understand, it was a great place to live."

"Yeah, but you've become too used to the way that we live here." Tapeworm commented with a fond smile. He then frowned. _But it'll suck if and when they have to go back. The balance of our two worlds can't be out of whack for forever. Realistically, if it's been broken up since a few years before Reed, Christian, and Core discovered it, it might not have much time left until it either catastrophically falls apart or we can fix it. If it can be fixed…._

"You look like you've got a lot on your mind, mate."

Tapeworm looked up to see that Riley had rolled over onto her side and was looking at him, her face void of emotions or anxiety. "I was just thinking of the whole end of the world thing," Tapeworm said as he crossed his legs. "I mean, so what if we defeat Gattaca, does that mean that the balance of the elemental world will go back to normal and we lose our friends and our powers? Or it is too late to fix?"

"Nothing is too late to fix," Riley replied, shaking her head. "Just like…" she paused, as if she was thinking for a few moments. "You may think that if something goes wrong there's nothing you can do, but the opportunity just hasn't presented itself yet."

"That's insightful," Tapeworm commented.

"Yeah, and _so_ unlike you," Rhuben replied, slightly teasing her sister. "What? Did you get that from Sydney?"

"Of course." Riley replied with a short shrug.

"Tapeworm has a point," DalFang crawled over Riley's back and turned into his full form as he sat in the center of the circle that they had created. DeathLiger leapt down from the tree and moved next to his brother as the two of them sat down on the ground. "As we were growing up, and before we were assigned to you guys, we were constantly told that there may be a day where our world is obliterated completely, and our world may go back to normal and that we need to be prepared in any even just in case."

"So how were you prepared when it came to getting taken by Core and being brought to WingzCorp?" DeathLiger asked bitterly.

Reihu scratched the back of his neck as he sat up once more. There was no way that he was going to get any sleep, not when they were going to have to get moving at a moment's notice. He stayed silent. He wasn't sure what to make about WingzCorp anymore, all of those people that he had hurt and all of the time that he had spent trying to catch them…it wasn't because of the reason that he thought. That Core wanted to grab back the ones that ran away from the organization and what they were supposedly doing. It was so they could have some protection. But of course Core couldn't come right out and say that.

But it made him wonder, what if he had gone with them when they left? He never liked anything that they were doing, which was why he acted like such a kid before. He distanced himself from what was really going on around them; he treated everything like a game. Even when he… (maybe) fell in love with Rhuben. The reason that he bugged her so much when they were younger was just so she could get her attention, so he could at least feel like something was real. Even when she looked at him like he was nothing (probably because he was a year and a half younger than her) and acted like he wasn't there, it at least made him feel something.

But now that all of that was a lie, it made him feel even hollower inside than it already did.

"Ok, well, this tension is weird." Riley commented as she got to her feet.

"What tension?" Rhuben asked with a snort.

"If you don't know, then you're either completely blind or completely stupid." Riley replied and stretched her arms over her head.

"I could have said the same to you before," Rhuben said and her eyes shot over to Tapeworm for a second, but she knew that her sister knew what she was talking about.

"So why didn't you?" Riley replied.

"Aw, just go do what you were going to do." Rhuben turned her attention back to the sky, and amused smile on her face.

Riley gave a teasing smile back in reply. "If we're not going to Christian's house for a while, I'm at least going to try and find some food or something to eat. Or some shelter to keep us warm." She rubbed her arms. "It's starting to get cold out here."

"You have the element of _fire_ and you're cold?" Tapeworm replied.

"Shut up." Riley nudged DalFang's side and the two walked off.

Tapeworm got to his feet and started to pace back and forth, feeling a little restless. He wasn't sure if it was from the nerves that he got used to, always having to be on the edge, or if it was from having the attributes of a bear in him, due to his guardian. He wasn't sure, but he was never really able to sit still.

"Let me know when you're ready for a switch, Rhu," He called up to her, as he started to circle the tree. "I don't think I'm going to be getting any sleep any time soon."

"Sure thing," Rhuben called down, looking at him again. "But you can stop stalking me, I'm not a bee hive filled with honey."

"You're such a riot, Rhu."

"Thanks."

Reihu snorted and stretched before rolling onto his side and closing his eyes to fall into a restless slumber…

* * *

**A/N: Sorry this is a short chapter, I wanted to go a bit more into Tapeworm's and Reihu's minds with everything that had happened. That's also why there was no battle in this chapter. It's kind of uneventful as well, but I think it's a good short change from the last action packed chapters. Yes, finally another update. And because I've finished the other stories I was working on, I'm going to update this story more frequently. So I'm sure you guys are glad about that. **

**As for this chapter, it has a little known fact alluded to it in here. In some of my very early SLOZAC stories, if I didn't make it that Riley ended up with Zack (which she did more often than not) I had her paired with Tapeworm. Part of this is because I really loved his character and was sad that he left, but another reason was because I thought that they worked due in part to the fact that while he was smart, he didn't do it in a way that was overly confident (like Cody has a tendency to be) and they would be able to teach each other things. Tapeworm would be able to teach her to be more compassionate and she would be able to teach him to 'man up' every once in a while. I don't know, it worked in my head.**

**So, they don't know about Max and Koto dying yet (no one else does actually) but they will know soon. Plus, the prophecy will be talked about in the next chapter as well.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riley**


	57. Was your wife an elemental?

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

* * *

_Bailey closed her eyes, allowing her body to gather up the power that she could feel in her body. She let out a shout as the energy blew out of her in a white dome of power. Hillary crashed against it and went flying backwards through the air as two of her copies let out screams and were blasted to the side, losing their grips on Bailey's arms._

_"You're not going to beat me!" Hillary screeched a twisted smile on her face._

_"DEMON CLAW!" Dricer hurled through the air and slashed a large paw at the side of Hillary's head. She let out a scream of pain as the gashes ripped open her side, sending blow flowing to the ground._

_"Thanks Dricer," Bailey wiped blood from her mouth as she got to her feet. She looked over her shoulder and saw Crystal get hit in the stomach with a hard kick, and she was moving slowly to get to her feet._

_"Ice Storm!" Dricer flapped his wings and an icy wind blew two of the copies back against the ground._

_"ENOUGH!" Hillary ignored the blood dripping down the side of her body, fixing her vacant eyes on Bailey. All of the copies except for the one attacking Crystal disappeared. "I'm tired of this! Time for you to __die__!"_

_She charged forward and kicked Bailey in the chest. As the brunette stumbled back, Hillary grabbed her by the shirt and punched her in the stomach and then across the face. Bailey fell back on the ground and Hillary jumped on top of her, holding onto the front of her shirt and growling._

_Bailey's head swam as he tried to focus on not blacking out. She knew that Hillary was stronger than him and that there wasn't much else that she could do. Hillary grinned evilly as she grabbed onto Bailey's neck and started to squeeze._

_Frantically, Bailey tried to throw Hillary off of her, as the edge of her vision swam._

_Hillary squeezed harder, her grin growing malicious._

_Bailey heard her psychotic giggle one more time before she passed out…_

"When's she gonna wake up?"

"I'd back away if I were you, Aaron, you don't know what kind of powers she'll release when she wakes up. You don't know whether or not she's going to panic when she figures out where she is."

"It's not like she's going to do anything bad…the worst she could do is think that she's drowning and then blast a hole in the side of her tube."

"Crys!"

"Just saying."

Bailey's eyes slowly opened. She slowly blinked a couple of times before everything slowly started to focus. Well, at least focused the best way that it could. Everything was sort of distorted, stretched out. Like she was looking through a pair of glasses that weren't her prescription…and she didn't even wear glasses. Bailey moved a hand to rub at her eyes, and realized that her arm was moving slowly, like she was in water.

Bailey watched, her eyes half lidded as her hair floated in front of her face, moving up and down as if it was being pushed by a current.

_Floating? _Bailey's eyes opened wide when she realized that she was in a tube and that there was water all around her. She moved her hand to her face and felt electrodes stuck to her temples. She opened her mouth to scream…and was surprised to find that no water rushed into her mouth. She could breathe…she _was_ breathing perfectly fine. She was breathing under water…how was that even possible?

"Oh, look, she's awake." Aaron's face suddenly appeared at the other side of the tube, his light colored blue eyes seemingly looking through her. He turned. "You can drain the tube now; I think she's freaking out."

"Gee, how can you tell?" Crystal asked as she walked over to the tube, her arms crossed over her chest. She flipped her ponytail over her shoulder and waved an arm off to the side. "Go ahead, Dad, I think she's gonna have a panic attack."

"Got it," Christian's voice came back. "Cody, don't forget to release the water slowly, I don't want it to go flying all over the place and soak my equipment."

"No problem, Christian."

Bailey watched in surprise as the tube lifted from the floor and the water slowly moved away from her, feeling more a like a gel or a jelly than water. She was amazed when as Cody moved the water over to a bin on the floor, that her clothes weren't wet. All of a sudden, she flashed back to the fight that she and Crystal were in and she brought a hand up to her throat, feeling a bandage there.

Aaron walked over to Bailey and gently took her hand, leading her over to a chair that was sitting at as desk. "Your throat is going to be hurting for a while, Ashley really did try to kill you back there," he waited until she sat down. "No that that's surprising, but she tried more to get to you than to Crystie."

Bailey lightly rubbed a hand over her neck, squeezing her eyes shut. As soon as she did so, Hilary's psychotic laugh filled her head once more. She could practically feel her grip on her throat all over again. Bailey opened her eyes and rested her face in her hands. "I want my mom." She said quietly.

"Well," Cody walked over and gently ran a hand over her back. "It's probably not a good idea to try and go to her, especially since we're in this much trouble as it is."

"You don't understand," Bailey continued to mutter into her hands. "That's what mother's are for, and it's what my mother is good at. She can fix anything. She can fix this."

"I think she's a little delusional," Christian commented as he walked over and lifted her eyelids, looking to see if her pupils dilated. "Being strangled like that must have really messed with the oxygen to her brain." He turned to Aaron, who waited diligently by his side. "Go get Core and-"

"She's fine, Dad," Crystal interrupted. "You've just done the full scan on her as well as healed her completely, she just has to get over the initial shock of her being attacked, like, completely attacked for the first time in her life." She turned to her dad. "It takes a while, remember?"

Bailey slowly moved her face from her hands. Was she imaging it? Was Crystal really defending her? She even had a hint of concern in her voice for the other girl. She looked up at the people standing around her. Christian had his arms crossed over his chest and he looked downright exhausted, as if he hadn't slept at all since they had left the house the first time, Cody (as per usual) had a pensive-yet-serious expression on his face, Aaron was looking back and forth between all of them, his sightless blue eyes shifting back and forth as well, as if he was sensing their emotions, and Crystal…she couldn't place. Not like Bailey usually could anyway, but she didn't seem nearly as hostile as she was before.

"What happened?" Bailey asked, stretching, surprised at the fact that she didn't feel sore at all. "Why aren't I hurt? I thought I was hurt real bad."

"You were," Aaron replied simply. He moved his blonde hair from his face. "Long story short, you guys were attacked by Hilary, and she was actually really close to defeating you. She had placed Cody in a bubble that basically saps your energy the longer you're in there, so it's easier to destroy you. Then she used her own powers to try and get rid of Crystal and Bailey. She managed to overpower Dricer and Crystal, and was going after you, Bailey, when somehow while you were knocked out, you were able to create enough power that it started to burn Hilary, basically from the inside out."

"The inside out?" Bailey repeated.

"Mhm," Christian confirmed. "The power of light that you have, considering you've tapped into Geneva's power at a crucial moment, basically started to eat away at the darkness that was inside Hilary." He rubbed his neck. "You guys were so close that Aaron noticed that your positions were picked up and Core came and got you and brought you guys back here."

"Where is he, anyway?" Cody asked, his eyes narrowing slightly.

"Well, due to the fact that you still don't really trust him," Christian said pointedly, causing Cody to look down at his feet. "He's upstairs, working on some stuff." He then turned to Crystal, giving her a hard look. "And what are you doing back here? Don't you think that Halo Syndicate isn't just going to track you and blow up the rest of the house?"

"I needed to see if you guys were ok, Daddy." Crystal replied defiantly, putting her arms around Aaron's shoulders. "I couldn't just keep running around and not make sure, especially when we're about to go out into one of the biggest battles of our lives." She added. "Plus, there were a few things that I was wondering about…"

"Does this have to do with your mom?" Christian asked, seemingly ignoring the others that were in the room with him. "I figured you weren't done talking about that, especially since you jumped down my throat with her death and everything." He walked over to a counter and pulled himself up onto it. "Ok, ask away, the first answer I'm going to give you though, is yes, she really was your mother."

"Funny," Crystal replied, smiling a little. "You're a riot."

"Aren't I?"

Bailey sat back, detached from the conversation. It was always so weird to her, how one moment they could be fighting for their lives, and the next minute they were acting normal.

"_It's their way of life, Bailey. It's the way that they cope with everything." _Geneva replied.

"What do you want to know?" Christian asked, looking over at Cody. "I can see that you really have something that you want to say." He goaded. Cody looked at him and then tilted his head up, looking at the ceiling, his eyes narrowed as if he could see right through it. "Core isn't going to try and explain anything to you guys until he feels that he's ready, and as his friend, I'm going to respect his wishes about that and not say anything that has to do with his decisions. But I _can_ tell you everything that I know."

Cody let out a heavy sigh through his nose and ran a hand over his forehead, muttering something under his breath. He looked over at Crystal, who hesitated and then nodded, and he turned back to Christian. "Recently, Zhane…who is really Geneva's brother Gattaca, put Crystal and your nieces and nephews under the spell of darkness." He said slowly. "And the reason that Crys was able to get out of it so easily was because she thought of you and her mom and us and everything." He explained. "At first we thought that it was weird that he was targeting them, but then it made sense, considering the fact that he was the one that had attacked you years before. But what we still didn't understand in the whole scheme of things is why he attacked yours and Reed's wives if they weren't elementals." He licked his lips and looked Christian right in the eyes. "Was your wife an elemental?"

"No," Christian replied easily. "She wasn't, but your grandfather was," he turned to Crystal, who looked surprised. "Your grandfather on your mother's side at least. He was an elemental and he openly talked about it with your mother and Ruriko. So they knew all about it and found out about our research on it pretty quickly."

"But then…" Crystal looked confused. "How come we never met him and why didn't you tell me about it before?"

"Because Mori Hiroshima, your grandfather, died before you all were born." Christian explained in reply. "And your grandmother died shortly after he did. So Kristine and Ruriko, who knew that they had the gene that they could pass down to their children, after figuring out that Nathan, Reed, and I knew about elementals and were researching it, came to the decision that we weren't going to talk to you kids about it until you got old enough or you awakened." He shrugged. "Whichever came first."

Bailey's eyebrows furrowed together. Christian was talking about his wife and his family so…passively; it was as if he didn't even care anymore. Then she understood a second later. The reason that he was so passive and that Crystal was so…short tempered, possessive of her friends, and over-protective all the time, was because they had never really talked about, or had gotten over the fact that she had died because of a senseless war, because she was caught in the crossfire. She wasn't an elemental, but Christian's research and his attack possibly attracted Gattaca to her and decided to get rid of all of them, even if she wasn't exactly the one that was a threat.

"So…how did you know that I was one before I awakened?" Crystal asked slowly, as if putting two and two together.

"Because," Christian let out a deep breath as he thought about it. "There was always something a _little_ bit different about you; you could always hear something we couldn't. Your eyes seemed to glow in the dark a lot when you were little, and sometimes we couldn't explain why the room would get a little colder when you entered." He suddenly looked older than he really was. "I wanted to tell you about it, but your mother didn't want to put you in that danger."

Crystal fell silent, looking down at her feet, tightening her grip around Aaron's shoulders. Cody looked back and forth between the two of them and cleared his throat. "Uh, we'll just leave you guys alone."

"No, Cody, you're ok." Crystal said as she lifted her head, wiping at her eyes. "We got the answers we wanted, so things should be better now." She hesitated before letting go of Aaron and moving over to her Dad, giving him a hug around his waist. She nuzzled into his chest as he gave her a hug back.

"I never wanted to bring you into this," he said as he kissed the top of her head. "And I'm sure your mother wouldn't have wanted you to either, but we're very proud of you."

"Even if I have a chance of dying before you?" Crystal replied, her voice muffled in his chest.

"Even with that." Christian replied grimly.

Bailey turned and noticed a flash of jealousy across Cody's face. She couldn't help but feel for him, his mom and dad had abandoned him and his brother, and now here one of his friends were, having a bonding moment with her father in the face of death.

_It must be really hard for him. _Bailey reached out and grabbed his hand. He allowed her to hold it for a second before pulling away and turning towards the stairs.

He stopped when he heard footsteps and looked up, seeing Julius and Maddie walking down the stairs. They looked like they had been in a few fights, but didn't have any broken bones or any other visible damaged. If anything, they looked even more determined than they ever had before.

"Julius! Maddie!" He cried before hurrying over to the blonde woman, throwing his arms around her in a hug. "You guys are ok!" He took a step back, his eyes wide. "Where did you disappear off to? You just suddenly left?"

"We had some stuff that we needed to take care of," Julius replied confidently. "Don't worry; we've been keeping tags on your guys' progress the whole time from Christian." He turned to his Uncle. "Are they still all split up?"

"Yeah," Christian replied with a nod.

Julius nodded slowly and turned back to Cody. "You need to get everyone back here." He said firmly. "I know that you guys wanted to keep Zhane and Halo Syndicate busy for a while before they tried to attack you, but we need everyone in one place so we can finally come up with a plan of attack."

"Do you think that's a good idea?" Aaron questioned, rubbing his chin. "If we bring everyone here? The shield that we have around the house may not keep up if they all try to attack at once. Wouldn't it be better if we got rid of his henchmen first?"

"Speaking of which," Bailey said slowly. She took a deep breath. "I think that Sydney went to work with Gattaca." As soon as the words came out of her mouth, Julius' eyes hardened and Crystal frowned. "I know that it sounds weird, but the whole traitor thing and it's obviously not you two." She motioned to Crystal and Cody. "And he hadn't woken up when we left and-"

"And, how do you know he's not meditating or something?" Crystal snapped. "He has the power of spirits for god sakes, he needs time to work on controlling that power, it's not like the rest of the power that we have." Her eyes flashed. "Sydney wouldn't do something like that!" Christian suddenly hurried over to one of his computers and started to rapidly type on it.

"Listen," Maddie interrupted the impending fight, walking over to Crystal and placing her hand on her shoulder. "We have an idea that could possibly help us get an advantage over Zhane and Halo Syndicate."

"Oh yeah?" Aaron looked interested, but his voice had an odd tone to it. "What's that?"

"We have an in to getting into his head," Julius said. Crystal made a waving motion with her hand, instructing him to keep going with his explanation. "Think about it," Julius said, his voice showing his anxiety about the situation as well as what could have happened to his baby brother. He turned to Bailey. "Geneva is a part of you and Gattaca is a part of Zhane, and those two are as closer as you can get."

"Brother and sister." Cody mused out loud.

"Exactly," Julius replied with a nod.

"Sorry." Bailey shook her head, a confused expression on her face. "But I'm really not getting this at all." But she was smart; she probably did know what they were thinking. She was that intuitive, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to hear what they had to say. Unfortunately, her curious nature couldn't turn off the part of her brain that was dying for the answer. She exchanged looked with Crystal, who looked just as baffled as she did.

"He's saying," Maddie spoke up, placing her hands on her hips. "If Geneva is a part of you and Gattaca is a part of Zhane and you can easily talk to Geneva…maybe you can talk to Gattaca as well."

* * *

**A/N: Yep, new chapter, really fast. And now you see a bit more with Christian and Core. Plus, you figure out whether or not Kristine and Ruriko were elementals. What did you think? Did you see it coming? I thought it would be better if there was a part of the family that was actually open about them being elementals. Now, as for why Reed and Ruriko didn't tell their kids about it, they were waiting for them to be old enough to talk about it.**

**I hope you guys liked it. Please let me know if as this story goes along if I forget to answer any questions. I have a problem with making so many of them up, which are important to the story, but forget about answering them in the long run. So, with Bailey possibly being able to connect to Zhane, it should change the pace of the story a bit. I bet you guys didn't see that coming. I'll show Gattaca, Sydney, and Core again soon.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	58. Like wax to a flame, he melted

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

* * *

_He slid onto the ground next to her. His knees would hate him the next day, but he didn't care. Zack ran a shaking hand through her hair, his eyes growing wide as he looked over her. Dark brown eyes blinked up at the sky. The light canvas and pure white clouds reflected in her orbs, her chest was heaving up and down as she tried to gather air in her lungs. Zack moved his hand down towards the blood coated shirt. Zack gently wrapped his arms around her body and lifted her up; a sea of blood greeted him._

_"No, no, no," Zack breathed, saliva connecting his lips as he spoke. "You're going to be okay, Max." he whispered._

_"Mistress," Canis appeared at Max's side and crouched down beside her, frantically licking at her face. "Mistress Max, get up."_

_Max's fingers wrapped themselves around Zack's wrist. Her brown eyes connected with his blue ones, her bloody lips moved soundlessly. A dribble of blood rolled from the corner of her lips and down her chin. The red cut through the grime of battle, and contrasted with the paling skin._

_"Tell Christopher…" she breathed heavily, before coughing lightly. The red line of blood became thicker and a bead of blood rolled off of her chin and onto her neck. She sucked in a deep breath, a tear filling the corner of her eye. "Tell him…that I love him…and…I know you guys…are going to finish this…"_

_Zack nodded mutely, tightening his grip on Max's body, ignoring the blood as it seeped through his clothes. Max's brown eyes blinked one more time, before losing their focus, growing dark. Her fingers lost their grip and her hand fell to the ground._

_"No," Zack whispered. This was what he didn't want to happen. He never wanted to see his friends die, not when he was one of the people that were the cause of the whole thing. __That stupid prophecy. __Zack sucked in a deep shuddery breath. "Please, no," Zack gasped. "Please." Tears fell from his eyes. They splashed onto the skin of his fallen friend._

"Is he still sitting there?"

"Yeah…I don't think he's going to do anything for a while, but it's just as well."

Zack ignored Patrick and Noah as he continued to sit on the ground, staring at Max's and Koto's bodies. He couldn't help it, in his head; he knew that they were gone. But in his heart…they were still there, just waiting for fatigue to release them and they could get back up and start fighting all over again. He was going to wait for that to happen until something showed him otherwise. He continued to watch them…the wind gently blew his hair from his face. If anyone was looking directly into his eyes, they would see nothing but anger and sheer sadness.

_This was exactly what I was trying to avoid. _Zack thought to himself, bringing his knees up to his chest. _I didn't want anyone to get hurt. I wanted this to end sooner, so I didn't have to lose anyone else. I've already lost my friends on the boat, and my Mom and Dad, and now this._

Zack watched as Canis continued to rest by Max's side, her head resting on her mistresses' lap. She hadn't moved in a while either, but he figured that being a guardian, she was probably used to it. She came from a world that he had never seen before and he wasn't sure how things worked over there. But he was sure that she had seen her fair share of death over the years, especially with all of the wars and things that had gone on before, who knew how old the guardians actually were. They looked very young, but for all they knew, they could be hundreds of years old. But still, it had to be hard to lose your best friend like that. Over the years that they had worked/lived together, the guardians and their wards (or whatever you wanted to call them) had quickly changed from acting like they were just assigned to each other, to actually caring for each other. Zack was sure that Blazen was his best friend (besides Cody) and he knew that his guardian felt the same way.

_I wonder what would happen if Blazen died. _Zack wondered to himself. _I wonder how things would be different for me._

"Zack…here's some food." Patrick and Noah had walked over to Zack, and were holding a sandwich out to him.

Zack shook his head. "I'm not hungry," he murmured, ignoring the outstretched hand.

"It'll keep your strength up," Patrick insisted, plopping the good into his lap. "Considering, after you attacked Ashley, you barely had enough strength to even stand." He licked his lips. "And if Koto didn't…" he trailed off, exchanging a glance with Noah. "Well, you know."

"Yes, I know." Zack repeated, sounding almost robotic. "If Koto hadn't jumped in front of me, I would be dead." He gave a hollow laugh. "And I should be, because I let Max down. I let her die." He suddenly grabbed onto his hair. "I let Tape down; he's going to kill me! I should have protected her for him."

"You can't have known that this was going to happen," Noah reminded him gently. "But it's a part of life, some people live their lives to the fullest…and others don't."

Zack slowly let go of his hair and looked up at the twin boys, who stood over him. His eyes narrowed as he looked at them. "You don't even care!" He accused, suddenly finding his voice. "You don't even care that they're dead! Max has been lying there for…who knows how long-"

"About a day," Patrick interrupted, startling Zack. "You haven't moved from that spot all day long. I don't think you've even noticed how much time has passed…"

"Wouldn't you?" Zack spat. "Our friend just freaking died and you're sitting there, trying to get me to eat and saying that it's just life and that I need to get over it! What kind of a friend are you? Do you even care?"

"Of course we care," Noah frowned, his eyes narrowing. "But in a war like this, there are times that you need to grieve and sometimes you don't have that luxury. We need to get out of the open, because Ashley is _going_ to come back, and this time she's not going to leave us alone until all of us are killed."

"If you cared, you'd be crying!" Zack insisted.

Patrick reached out and grabbed onto Zack's shoulders, holding onto him tightly. "People grieve in different ways, Zack," He made sure that Zack was looking right at him. "And I'm not trying to get sympathy when I say this, but I've been reminded of my parents' death so much, and being WingzCorp I've seen a lot of it, that it takes a while for it to get to me. That doesn't mean that I don't care that my friends died, it just means that I'm going to show it in a different way, or a different time than you do. So don't make it seem like we're heartless creatures, just because we're not doing it in a way that you'd want us to."

"He's right," Noah agreed with a nod. "I know it hurts a lot because she…used to be your girlfriend and she is one of the best friends that you've had, but it's like I said before; we're in a war, so these things are gonna happen. And you can grieve all you want, but right now is not the ideal time."

"_He's right Zack," _Blazen's voice resounded through Zack's head. _"Although I do understand what you're going through, it's never going to be easy, you have to decide whether or not you have the time, because you also have to worry about your safety, as well as getting their bodies somewhere safe so you can properly bury them."_

Zack, all of a sudden, felt a very strong urge to cry. In the back of his mind, he knew that it was going to make things better. Noah must have recognized the look on his face, for he placed a hand on Patrick's shoulder and turned him away as the two walked a few paces away to give Zack some privacy. Zack looked around the clearing that they were in, the trees had long stopped burning, but the acrid smell of smoke still stung his nose, the house behind them had a huge gaping hole in it, and it was a surprise that it was still standing, and yet…the rest of the world was quiet.

He didn't hear any cars, he didn't hear any voices.

It was all silent.

Like wax to a flame, he melted.

His head in her hands, his heart in his feet, Zack's soul screamed from its depths for redemption, for salvation, for strength that would never come. The hope he had once had was lost, blown away by the whispering of the wind through the grass, rustling quietly, caressing gently.

* * *

"Do you think Zack's going to be ok?" Noah asked as he shifted Koto's body over his shoulder. He looked over at Patrick, who gave him a confused glance. "I mean, I know he hasn't gone through seeing so much death and torture that we have, but I think he has more pressure with it. Besides, watching someone die in your arms is very traumatizing, I don't think he's going to get over that anytime soon."

"How so?" Patrick shifted Max 's body in his arms, and looked back at Zack, who was walking slowly along behind them, looking at his feet, Blazen sitting on top of his head.

"Think about it," Noah insisted. "He's the leader of all of us, not officially, but we all turn to him whenever we're having some sort of trouble. Even though he doesn't always make the best decisions, he's always thinking of someone else's problems before his. And just before…they died…we were talking about how Zack was a bit tired of everything. The timing sucks, but I think that it's an important lesson for him to learn."

"That not everyone can be saved?" Patrick guessed.

"Exactly." Noah nodded.

"Yeah," Patrick let out a heavy sigh. "I think Zack's going to be fine though. He just needs some time to deal with this…" he paused for a moment. "And he needs his brother. There's no way that he's going to be able to go through this alone, since it's the first time he's seen it up close, especially since Blazen, you, and I have seen so much of this before. It just sucks that we're technically the cause of it all. If we hadn't have come to Boston the first time and if we had made sure he wasn't around, he wouldn't have awakened, and none of this would have happened. I can't help but feel a little guilty."

"You're forgetting the prophecy," Noah reminded him. "The darkness and everything…?"

"Yeah, but I still think that if we were extra careful none of this would have happened. You can't possibly say that you don't feel guilty. I know that Ri, Rhu, and Syd feel guilty all the time. That's why Riley and Rhuben typically decide that we go off by ourselves and not bring everyone else in. Like when we first heard about Halo Syndicate. Remember? I wanted to get in contact with Zack and Cody, but Rhu told us not to, and we dropped Syd off with Crystal, after telling her what we were doing, and we just left."

"Yeah, I remember." Noah nodded. He stayed quiet for a moment. "I can't say whether or not it was a good idea, because either way, we were trying to help our friends stay safe as well as have somewhat of a normal life for a while. They deserve that after everything that they had been put through in the past couple of years." He grimaced a little as he shifted Koto up his back. "But yeah, I was guilty too."

"Glad I'm not the only one. Sometimes I wish that-" Patrick suddenly stopped and looked over his shoulder again. "What happened to Canis?" He asked, turning to his twin.

"What are you talking about?" Noah's eyebrows furrowed together.

Patrick turned around completely, catching Zack's attention. "Wasn't Canis with you a couple of seconds ago? I thought she was walking right next to you."

Zack turned and looked at the ground, suddenly looking like he was awake. "Yeah, she _was_ just here," he said, running a hand through his hair. He looked around and suddenly a bright light shooting up into the sky caught their attention. Zack tilted his head back and watched as it got smaller and smaller, emitting a soft, white glow. "What is that?" he breathed.

"That's Canis," Blazen replied.

"What do you mean?" Patrick turned to him sharply. "His eyes wide. What's happening to her?"

Blazen looked sad as he flew down into Zack's arms. "When an elemental dies…the guardian dies as well." He said slowly. "Typically guardians and elementals, when our world was just our world and not merged with earth, died of old age or if they were in battle. But it's not uncommon for them to die because of a broken heart. And since Canis was so close to Max, and she wasn't very hurt in the battle, I think that's what happened here."

"But…" Zack took in a shuddery breath. "If she's going back to the elemental world…she can just get some rest and be assigned to someone else, right?"

Blazen shook his head. "Because our worlds have merged, a lot of things have changed…the rules don't work the same way that they sued to. Max is gone…and so is Canis."

* * *

**A/N: I'm sorry this chapter was so short, but I wanted to show how Zack grieved over his friends' deaths as well as getting help (if not tough love) from Patrick and Noah. I thought that his grieving would be really important and needed a chapter centered on the idea because he was the one that cares so much about his friends being hurt, as well as being tired of all the fighting and having the responsibility of it all on his shoulders because he's the 'leader'. And yes, Canis is dead, as in, she can't come back.  
**

**All chapters until the final battle with have a little bit of everyone and there will be a few more battles before the final one. Also, it may seem like Patrick and Noah is getting the short end of the stick in this story, but they will have big parts by the story's end.**

**I hope you guys liked this (and I hope you like the faster updates as well).**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	59. Don't underestimate me, kid

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

* * *

Sydney sucked in a breath as he brought his fists up close to his face. He shuffled back and forth a few seconds before thrusting his fists forward, punching the air in front of him rapidly. He then spun on the balls of his left foot and arced his right foot through the air. He shuffled back a few more steps and brought his right fist back.

"What are you doing?"

Sydney looked over his shoulder and stared at Zhane for a moment as his hand glowed a dark blue. He then shoved his arm forward in a punch and watched as a burst of energy shot forward and hit the back wall, causing it to implode, sending chunks of the ceiling falling about him. "Back of Zhane," Sydney snapped. "I don't need to be distracted right now, got it?"

Zhane sighed heavily and brought a hand up, allowing the wall and the ceiling to move back into place. "You're going to have to watch that unless you want to blow up our whole hideout."

"No point in calling it a hideout if…_they_ can easily find it just by passing over the coast." Sydney replied as he brought an arm across his forehead, wiping off sweat. He flicked his wrist, causing the sweat droplets to fall to the ground. He gave them a dismissive glance before turning back to Zhane, keeping a level gaze on him. "Not that it's going to matter much; your army is slowly dwindling down. Hillary was blasted from the inside out, and now all you have is Leslie and Ashley and I don't think that they're going to hold up much longer."

Zhane merely shrugged. "That just means that I'm going to have to implement my plan sooner than I intended to."

"Oh really?" Sydney snorted as he crossed his arms over his chest. "With what I have seen of your…lack…of fighting style so far, I don't think that they're going to have any problems." He turned back around and started to punch the air once more.

"And all this coming from someone that is sparring against nothing." Zhane shot back.

Sydney slowly lowered his arms and turned back around. "Those sound like fighting words." He sank into a low crouch. "But you're forgetting that _I'm_ the elemental here, not you."

"But _you're_ forgetting," Zhane brought his up to his face, and the air started to crackle with electricity. "That _I'm _the one that ruled half of the element world."

Sydney slowly smirked, his eyebrows rising for a split second before he launched forward. He brought back a hand and shot it forward, sending a blast of energy into Zhane's stomach. He skidded back a half a foot before launching himself forward and hitting Sydney in the chest. Sydney, due to his small size, was easily knocked off of his feet; he went flying backwards and landed on his back on the ground.

Zhane jumped forward to pin him to the floor, but Sydney rolled backwards, righting himself onto his feet and as his hands glowed blue, he brought his arms up. The wooden floor seemed to liquefy as it moved upwards, stretching up into the air like branches from a tree. Zhane crashed into it and went sprawling to the floor. He placed his hands onto the floor as if he was going to do a pushup, and swung himself around, doing a judo sweep that hit Sydney in the side, sending him across the room. Zhane laughed darkly as Sydney hit the opposing wall and fell to the floor.

"Don't underestimate me, kid." He said as he held his hands out, they were covered with black-purple energy that went over to Sydney and wrapped around him, lifting him off of the ground and into the air. Sydney merely looked down at him. "I could use less than a quarter of my power and kill you with it." He slowly started to close his fists and the energy around Sydney started to squeeze as well.

Sydney resisted the urge to immediately start panicking. His arms were pinned to his sides and he wasn't able to kick his legs back and forth to give him some leverage to get free. He tried to concentrate on his powers, but couldn't stay focused long enough as Zhane continued to squeeze. All of a sudden he was able to suck air into his lungs and Zhane dropped his hands, allowing Sydney to drop back to the floor, onto his stomach.

"You're acting like I really want to do this," Zhane sighed as he brushed his hair out of his face. "But I really have no choice. And what you said earlier, you're right." He waited for Sydney's coughing spasm to pass and for him to lift his head so they locked eyes before speaking. "I _am _starting to run low on people," he reached out and smacked Sydney in the face with another shot of energy. "Hopefully I won't be short one more."

With that, he turned and walked out of the room.

Sydney sat back on his heels and shook his head, trying to get his ears to stop ringing. He reached up and touched the front of his nose, and pulled his fingers away, relieved to see that his nose wasn't bleeding. It didn't feel like anything was broken either.

"I don't understand it," SpiritSaru appeared by Sydney's side, his tail lashing out and flicking across Sydney's nose, as if making extra sure that it wasn't bleeding. "You couldn't summon me at all to help, I tried, but it was like something was blocking me." He turned around and faced Sydney again, resting on his knuckles. "I think that he figured out how to keep parts of your power blocked. Which, in essence, is a good thing."

"Huh," Sydney rolled his jaw before licking his lips. "You're right." He slowly gave a sinister smile. "That just means that I'm just going to have to work harder to get stronger so I'll be prepared when the others get here."

* * *

**A/N: By now I hope that you guys don't really take my ideas in my author's notes too seriously, because I think that you have seen that I have not really stuck with anything that I have said that I was going to d. (IE a fight in every chapter until the end, as well as it showing a bit of everyone). But that's only because my ideas for chapters and the way the story flows keeps changing. But I knew that I needed to get back to Zhane and Sydney before the end of the story, so I decided to stick it here. And, of course, there's a little bit of a fight scene between the two of them.**

**It came out shorter than I intended, but at the same time I think it works. The next chapters are going to be longer to make up for the shorter chapters I have been putting out lately.**

**I hope you guys liked it.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	60. The Prophecy

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

* * *

"What part of '_give it a rest_' do these people not get?" Riley asked as she gripped onto DalFang's fur and leaned to the side as he took a sharp turn in the air. "I mean, they're acting like robots, like they never get tired." DalFang suddenly dipped through the air as a ball of green energy went flying over head. She grabbed onto Tapeworm's arm as he started to slip off of DalFang's back. "You see, this is why you need a guardian that can fly."

"You're acting like it's _my _fault." Tapeworm shot back.

"If Leslie is attacking again, that just means that Zhane is getting really desperate," Rhuben reasoned from DeathLiger's back, where she and Reihu were sitting. She shook her head. "That's not good," she said, her knuckles turning white as she gripped onto DeathLiger's fur. "He might take us off guard before we can even try to get as strong as he is."

"Then we're just going to have to get rid of Leslie," Tapeworm replied. "He thought for a moment. I really don't want to go back to Christian's, but that's probably the safest place for us right now."

"We'll take care of Leslie and then take you there," DalFang said as he tilted his white wings to the side and turned around so he was at his brother's side.

"We don't want her following us back to Christian's house, especially if there's a chance that the barrier could be down." DeathLiger agreed.

Riley and Rhuben exchanged quick glances before turning their attention back to Leslie, who, like DalFang, had tilted her green wings around and were flying back towards them at the great speed. DalFang and DeathLiger started to back up a little bit as she got closer and closer.

"Aim for her wings if you can," Reihu instructed. "Although she can easily regenerate them, it will still take some time for her to do so."

The two girls waited as Leslie got closer and closer to their guardians. They knew that if they attacked too soon, when she was too far away, she could easily doge their attack and send an even bigger one their way before DalFang and DeathLiger had the chance to even try and move out of the way. But then, if they waited too long, then they would be hit before they could even blink. So it was a waiting game as well as a battle of the reflexes.

Which one was going on win…?

"Now!" DeathLiger called, a few seconds later.

Riley's and Rhuben's hands glowed red and purple as they brought their arms up over their heads. A large black ball appeared above them and it started to get bigger and bigger as the outside ring slowly radiated a reddish color, pulsing as if it had its own heartbeat. The twin sisters brought their arms down and the ball went shooting towards Leslie at such a high speed it collided with her before she could even think to stop.

"Shadow of Rage!" the two called.

Leslie screeched with pain as the ball expanded over her head and then settled around her neck. It glowed a bright purple before sliding into a black color, seeming to strike her with the energy as it did so. Then, as it completely settled around her neck, it burst into flames, causing Leslie's shrieks to increase in volume and velocity. She thrashed around, trying to use her blasts of energy to get it off of her neck, but they just ricocheted off and into the air, causing DalFang and DeathLiger to quickly move to the side, so they didn't get hit. But one ball of energy came so close to them that when it passed DeathLiger, it cut a line across Rhuben's cheek, allowing a few drops of blood to roll out, down her neck, staining the collar of her shirt. The twin girls then jumped off of their guardian's back and slammed onto Leslie, causing the three of them to plummet back to earth.

They held Leslie down underneath them as they fell through the air, and used all of their body weight to fall onto her as they slammed into the ground. A crater erupted into the ground beneath them, showering the air with dirt and dust. The ring disappeared from Leslie's neck as Riley and Rhuben jumped back, just in case she tried to attack them again. They watched as the ground slowly closed over her and looked up to see Tapeworm with his arms outstretched, his hands glowing green.

"That's not going to hold her for long," he said as a grim smile slid onto his face. "We should get going."

"So we _are_ going back to Christian's?" Reihu asked to make sure as the two girls walked over to their guardians. "Are you sure that's a good idea? I mean is there anything that they can do that can help us defeat these guys?"

"Well, I think you're forgetting that Core is one of the people that are back there that can potentially help us." Rhuben reminded him as she ran a hand over DeathLiger's face, giving a small, sad, smile as he flinched slightly, hearing his captor's name being said. "If there's anyone that can help…even though I hate to admit it…it'll be him."

"Besides," Riley spoke up. "He knows just about as much of WingzCorp than the rest of us could, especially if he has been following Gattaca…or Zhane or whomever, this whole time without being noticed that he was doing so." She shrugged. "Well, he probably knows now, but if he wasn't able to defeat us when we were at the house before, then he's not going to defeat us now."

"Hm, you seem to actually believe in what you're saying." Tapeworm remarked.

"If you give up hope, then you might as well just kill yourself," Riley replied shortly. "If you have nothing to live for, what's like worth living?"

Tapeworm nodded slowly. _But wasn't that your problem before? The only way that Gattaca was able to get into your head was because you had given up on life before. So what changed your mind now? When we first met, you didn't want us to have to do anything with the elemental world…it didn't take long for you to change your mind._

"So why don't you just use your watches to let the others knows that you're going back?" Reihu broke the silence. One of his eyebrows was raised, and his body quietly emitted his thoughts of their stupidity. "You used to do that all of the time."

"Yeah, but our watches have this thing where it's like GPS when you speak into them," Tapeworm explained. "It pin-point on your exact location, and you don't want to use it in case it fell into the wrong hands." He suddenly looked concerned. "Where do you think, Syd is?" He asked after a moment. "I mean, he disappeared and we haven't heard from-"

"He's fine." Rhuben replied shortly. "It'll take almost every power in the world to take him down."

"But you don't know that for sure," Tapeworm pressed, gently. He licked his lips for a moment and then let out a heavy sigh. "Listen," he said, the grave tone in his voice grabbing their attention. "I head Bailey talking to Cody one day and she said that there was someone in our group that we couldn't trust. At the time it was between Crystal and Sydney, because, well, everyone can tell that we can trust Cody."

"So you're saying we can't trust our family?" Riley spat.

"I'm not saying that," Tapeworm replied calmly. "I'm just saying that, given the circumstances, as he disappeared when we split up, I'm just saying that something is odd." He held up his hand as Riley and Rhuben glared at him and opened their mouths to say something. "I'm not saying that we can't trust hi, because he's never given us a reason not to before." Riley closed her mouth. "And I'm not saying that what Bailey has been telling Cody is true either; I just think that we should be on our toes. It's not like Syd to suddenly run off without telling anyone where he's going."

Ursa appeared at Tapeworm's side, looming over DalFang, DeathLiger, Reihu, Tapeworm, Riley, and Rhuben. "It's also not like SpiritSaru to not say anything to us either." He explained. "So if there was something up, if Sydney was planning something, it would probably be the only time that he wouldn't mention anything, just in case things went wrong."

"Plus, he was the one, besides you two, that was under the influence of Gattaca the longest." Reihu added slowly, as if he didn't want to admit what he had just said. "But what do I know?" He added after a second.

"Not much, apparently," Riley mumbled in reply, scratching her forehead. Rhuben shot her a look and Riley just sighed, moving her overgrown hair out of her face. "Let's just get to back to Uncle Christian's house and we can talk to Bailey then." She said through gritted teeth, tightening her hands into fists.

"First," Rhuben tilted her head towards the ground. "What are we going to do about her? She can blast out of the ground at any moment. If she can regenerate her wings, I don't think it would take much to regenerate her _neck_."

Tapeworm shrugged and held his hands up as they glowed green. He pointed over to a nearby tree and as it glowed green as well, he slowly lifted his arms over his head. As the others watched, the tree slowly ripped out of the ground, the roots snapping sounding more like gunshots. Then it slowly moved through the air and over to where Leslie was lying underground. Tapeworm dropped his arms and the tree went crashing into the ground with so much force that it sank a few feet into the damp soil. Tapeworm then waved his hands again, allowing the soil to harden.

"That should hold her for a while," he said dusting off his hands. "Let's get going."

Riley sighed and grabbed onto DalFang's fu before swinging herself up onto his back. She waited for Reihu to get into DeathLiger before they took off up into the air. They were all quiet for a while until something white went rocketing up into the sky, catching their attention.

"What's what?" Riley asked, pointing over to it.

"I have no idea," Tapeworm murmured in reply. "It's can't be a plane, they don't go straight up like that."

"Maybe it's a bird," Rhuben suggested.

"Yeah, or superman," Reihu snorted.

Rhuben looked down as she felt DeathLiger tense underneath her. She gently ran a hand over his back and frowned when he didn't immediately relax at the touch, like she usually did. Rhuben leaned forward, pushing his mane out of her way, so she was close to his hear. "Hey, what's wrong?" She asked gently, into his ear. "What is it?"

"Nothing," DeathLiger replied after a moment. "It's nothing; I just can't help but be on the edge. You know, with the prophecy and everything."

"What did the prophecy say?" Tapeworm asked, sharply turned his head to face her. "How long have you guys known about it?"

Rhuben hesitated for a moment. "Almost as long as we have known about Halo Syndicate?"

"And you didn't say anything?"

"We don't have to tell you everything."

"Yeah, and that's why you keep disappearing on us all the time!"

Riley let out a loud sigh, letting them know that she was already tired of the argument that was starting to come up, but she didn't blame Tapeworm in the slightest. Almost as soon as he and Max had awakened, and she and her siblings had come to the realization that they weren't able to go around pretending that nothing was going on, they had changed their tactic and had only let Zack, Cody, Max, and Tapeworm into things that they thought were majorly important, or that Sydney had managed to crack. But now that Syd was gone, and the prophecy had been mentioned and they didn't have any answers for it, there was no way that they were going to be able to keep quiet much longer.

"Like all of the other prophecies that we hear, this one came to Syd in a dream," Riley started. "If I remember correctly, it was something like…_The one with the eyes red as fire, the one with the eyes shocking as sea, the ones whose inheritance the white pure blade. To voyage eighteen years from since they'd come, or the world in their hands would cease to become_." She cleared her throat. "Typically we referred the first two people towards Zack and Cody, but we're not sure about the others."

"Of course that's not what stuck out to us the most," Rhuben added. "It was the ending of the poem. _To voyage eighteen years from since they'd come, or the world in their hands would cease to become. _We're not really sure about the eighteen years part. But as soon as we heard about Halo Syndicate, that's what we started to associate with, something that had to do with them. But the ending…" she shook her head.

"What does it mean?" Tapeworm asked, a cold chill running down his back.

"Either Gattaca dies once and for all, or all of mankind does," Rhuben replied slowly. "And as the elemental world has slowly been falling into our world and has been collapsing…it'll die out as well."

* * *

**A/N: And now, everyone is going back together again. It's obviously going to happen in the next chapter. Of course they now have to deal with the plan of Bailey contacting Gattaca, them finding out about Max and Koto, and then them preparing for the final battle, and of course, the final battle. I hope you guys liked this chapter, I'll update again soon.**

**What did you think of the prophecy, by the way? It took me a while to come up with that to accurately depict what I was thinking for the whole story.**

**Cheers,**

**-Riles**


	61. Up until recently it seemed worth it

CHAPTER SIXTY

"Patrick, what are you doing?" Zack asked as he continued to try and ignore the burning feeling he had on his cheek, letting him know that Patrick was staring at, if not through him.

"Watching you," Patrick replied as if it was obvious. "You can't be too sure if you're suddenly going to start losing control of your powers." He added seriously. Zack raised an eyebrow at him. "Dude, you erupted in a _dome_ of fire, and I know that you haven't been able to do that before." He frowned. "If something else sets you off, something really bad might happen. And since it took all of your power just to do that to Ashley, I don't think you can control it yet." He placed a hand on Zack's shoulder, giving it a friendly squeeze. "I'm just watching out for you, dude."

"He's got a point," Blazen spoke up from where he was perched on Zack's head. "I've never seen any power of that grand scale come from anyone."

"Anyone?" Zack repeated skeptically. "Yeah right," he muttered under his breath, kicking at a rock in front of him.

Patrick looked up and exchanged glances with Noah, who was looking back at the two boys with an odd expression on his face. Once he locked eyes with his twin, he shook his head slightly and turned back around. Patrick let out a heavy sigh, his shoulders slumping, but continued to walk with them. A second later, he spoke up again.

"Did you feel that?" He asked, speaking about the calm feeling that had washed over them. "I think we're really close to Uncle Christian's house now." He paused for a minute. "With this major battle that's looming over our heads…I just have to ask…realistically…do you think that we'll be able to defeat Gattaca?"

"I don't even want to think about that right now," Noah replied after a second of thought. "Besides, we have other things that we need to worry about."

Zack stared at the back of Noah's head. Somehow, and he wasn't sure how exactly, he knew that there was something that he wasn't telling them. It didn't really surprise him, there were a lot of things that they kept secret, but this time he knew that it was something really big that was going to potentially help them with the fight later. He could feel it in the pit of his stomach. Sometimes he wondered how he had become friends with them, knowing that if it was under normal circumstances, it would have been harder to befriend them. But having one common goal, as well as them being the ones that awakened him and Cody, they became friends fast. Besides, he had been told numerous times that Patrick was like a mini version of him (apart from his obsession with girls) and that Noah was like a mini version of Cody, but much quieter. But it was harder to place Riley, Rhuben, Sydney, and even Crystal, as he didn't think that he would ever become friends with people like them.

And up until recently it seemed worth it.

With everything falling apart, he still wondered if it was worth it. But he wasn't going to voice his thoughts out loud because he knew that it would be useless as he couldn't stop the way things were going now, and because he didn't want to have anyone else worry about him.

"There's the house," Noah nodded once as he turned back to the others, before looking at Koto and Max. They had stepped out of the woods that had lined the back of the neighborhood and hesitated against the fence that ran around the back yard. "Are you guys ready?"

"Yeah," Zack nodded firmly. "Let's go."

He moved past Patrick and Noah and hopped over the fence, entering the backyard. He looked around at the other houses to make sure that no one thought that they were going to rob the place, but it was futile. The houses, just like every other place in Boston, seemed to be deserted. It was as if WWIII had started and they were all sure to be in the clear.

_It's probably for the best anyway, _Zack thought to himself as he trudged ahead. _I don't want anyone else to get hurt. I wonder if Esteban was able to get out in time. _He walked over to the basement door and checked the lock before pulling it open, and stepping inside. He gave a sigh of relief when he felt air conditioning hit him in the face. He took a step to the side allowing Patrick and Noah to enter the house as well. They looked around for a moment, noticing that it was quiet, not even one computer or other monitor was beeping.

But then the door at the top of the basement opened and they heard rapid footsteps coming down the stairs before Aaron appeared at the bottom step. "Hello?" He asked, his head moving back and forth. "Who's there?" He then stepped off the last step and a smile broke out over his face. "Patrick, Noah, Zack, you're here!" He then frowned. "Wait, what happened to Max and Koto?"

"Don't worry about that yet," Noah said quickly. "Are the others upstairs? Are they sleeping?" He looked over his shoulder at the dark sky behind them.

Aaron nodded at his cousin. "I'll go wake them up." He said and turned and hurried back up the steps.

"You sure that you want to wake them up and then just tell them that two of our friends are dead?" Noah asked, sounding skeptical.

"They're going to have to find out eventually," Zack replied with a shrug. "It's better that we get it over with now, ripping the band-aid off as Cody would say." He added.

"Zack, are you sure you're ok?" Patrick asked, his eyebrows lowering. "You don't sound like yourself. I think seeing Max die has made you-"

"I'm fine!" Zack interrupted. "Come on, let's get upstairs."

Patrick and Noah shrugged before grabbing Max and Koto and bringing them upstairs to the living room with them. They gently laid the two of them on the floor and waited as the others woke up and hurried to find their friends. Cody was the first one in the room; his eyes darting around for a second before he launched himself at his twin brother, hugging him tightly.

"I'm glad you're ok, bro." Cody said as he held onto his older twin.

Zack held onto him just as tightly. "I'm glad you're ok, too, bro." He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on his brother's shoulder, holding onto him as tightly as he could. Everything came flooding out of him at that point, the tiredness, the fear, and his anger about everything. There was no way that he was going to back down now, he was going to get rid of Gattaca even if it was the last thing that he would ever do. He was going to make sure that nothing happened to the rest of his friends.

"Zack, are you sure you're ok?" Cody asked as he patted his brother's shoulder, noticing how he was being hugged so tightly. "You're squeezing me kind of tight there."

"If you were as mad as I am, then you would be holding on as tightly as you could." Zack replied and slowly took a few steps away from him.

Cody stared right into Zack's eyes. He immediately noticed a difference in them. They now looked hollow and lifeless. Even when they had been back at the Tipton and Zack was complaining about not being able to have a normal life, he still had a sort of fire in his eyes that would let Cody know that he was still willing to go and fight for what he believed in. But now his eyes looked dead, as if the fire had been extinguished.

"Zack, what's wrong?"

Cody noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and looked over at Patrick and Noah, who stood off to the side, looking at him and then towards the floor. Cody followed their gazes and his mouth dropped open when he spotted Max and Koto lying lifelessly on the floor. He then looked up at Zack again, not feeling somewhat scared when he didn't have a reaction to it.

"What happened?" Cody gasped, slowly moving from his brother and dropping to his knees by Max's side.

"Guys," Crystal, Riley, Rhuben, Tapeworm, Bailey, Christian, Julius, and Maddie then hurried into the living room. Core, Aaron, Reihu, and the other members of WingzCorp followed after them, moving slower than the others, as if they could feel that there was something off with the tension of the room. "You're ok!" Bailey hurried over and threw her arms around Zack before giving Patrick and Noah a hug as well, barely noticing that they didn't give her one back. "We were starting to think that you had been…" she then noticed Cody kneeling by the floor. "Cody, what's wrong?"

"Max…" he managed to choke out after a second. "Koto…" he slowly turned around, looking at Kuroko, Kagenui, and Tapeworm. "They're both dead." His eyes started to shine with tears. Tapeworm's face immediately started to crumple as he fell by his girlfriend's side.

Kuroko merely glanced at his brother before turned and ramming into Zack, shoving him against the wall and pressing an arm against his throat. "Give me one good reason that I shouldn't snap your neck like a twig." He hissed in Zack's face.

"What happened?" Riley asked as she kneeled by Koto's side and gently ran her hand over his hair, looking as if she was looking right through him. Reihu kneeled by her side, looking down at him as well.

"We were fighting Ashley and she has the power to, basically, make copies of herself," Noah spoke up, crossing his arms over his chest. "She tricked us into thinking we were attacking her, but it was just a copy, ands he blindsided Max…" he sucked in a sharp breath, running a hand over his face warily. "And with Koto, she was going to do the same to Zack, but he jumped in the way of the attack."

"Huh," Reihu gave a short snort. "Who would have thought that DogBoy would have tried to save Zack." He gave a humorless laugh. "But in retrospect, this was the best way for him to go." He scratched his forehead. "It's kind of ironic, because before Core had abandoned us," he lifted his head and glared at Core, who merely looked back at him. "We were wondering what was better, the life that we were living or death. I guess Koto figured death was better, go figure."

"I didn't abandon you-"Core started to explain, but Reihu broke in.

"Like hell you didn't!" He spat. "We had to deal with how to survive on our own for so long it was as if you were never there! You tore our normal lives apart just to leave s in the end! I can't even go home anymore; my parents probably think I'm dead. And they definitely wouldn't want to see what I've become now!" All of his anger and frustration were evident in those words that were shot like bullets towards his former boss (of some sort).

"Canis died too," Patrick spoke up, bringing the attention back to him. Even Kuroko looked over at him, his arm still pressed against Zack's neck. "I didn't think that guardians could ever die, but…"

"So _that's_ what we saw in the sky." Rhuben spoke up, suddenly. "That white thing…I thought that DeathLiger was acting weird…" she lowered her head. "So he must have known. The guardians all know that it's possible for them to die."

"But what happens if they do?" Crystal asked, crossing her arms over her chest. "Like, does it affect the elemental in any way?"

"From what we had figured out with our studies," Christian spoke up, sounding very tired. It wasn't his own kids that were hurt, not even his nieces and nephews were killed, but it was still hard for him to see people so young getting killed. It was something that no adult should have to worry about. "If an elemental dies, then the guardian dies, but if the guardian dies, then a big part of the elementals' power source is taken away and they get significantly weaker." He then turned to Kuroko. "I know you're grieving over your brother, but taking someone else's life, someone who is on your side, isn't going to help."

"Why shouldn't I?" Kuroko continued to hold onto Zack. "He deserves to die anyway! Especially after everything that we've been through! He didn't care that we could have possibly had lives like he did before his precious parents split on him and his brother, he wanted us dead. I could always see it in his eyes."

"He's right," Zack whispered in reply looking directly at Kuroko. "I never liked any of these people, I always wanted them to go away and when I thought that they were our only enemy, I wanted them all dead. And now that one of them is, by saving me," he looked down at Koto. Riley was slumped over his chest, her arms framing her face, not moving. "I should die too."

Core raised a hand and waved it to the side. An invisible force of energy knocked Kuroko away from him and onto the floor. "Enough." He said quietly. He then lifted his head. "We need to give them time to grieve, let's give them some time alone."

* * *

It felt like hours later when Tapeworm finally dried off his face and lifted himself from Max's side. He knew that she wouldn't want him to grieve for too long. She would have told him not to make a big fuss over her and to just get over it. And even though it hurt so badly, he was going to do just that. Tapeworm stretched and then went to find Zack. The house wasn't that big, and even with over 9 people in it, it still seemed hard to find him. He finally spotted the blonde boy sitting on the ground in the middle of the backyard, looking at his hands while alternately looking up at the sky.

"Are you looking for the elemental world or something?" Tapeworm asked as he came up behind his friend.

"That's an interesting thought," Zack replied, sounding more like himself now and not like a robot. "I wonder, since it's collapsing and everything, if you actually can see it at some point in the day." He shook his head. "But no, I'm not looking for it. I'm just trying to wrap my head around everything that happened." He crushed his hands into fists. "I'm tired of Gattaca just sitting out there somewhere, laughing at us while he picks us off one-by-one. He may have done something to Syd, he killed Max and Koto. What's next?"

"What's next is that we're going to go and kick his ass," Tapeworm replied firmly. "He's not going to get away with this."

"I'm sorry," Zack replied after a moment, his hands falling out of fists once more.

"Sorry for what?"

"Sorry for not being able to protect Max," Zack replied, standing up and turning around to face Tapeworm completely. "I knew that I had to, even though we never said it. Just, something in the back of my mind said that Tapeworm would want me to protect her, and I couldn't even do that."

"No," Tapeworm smile and shook his head. "I wanted her to protect _you_." Zack's eyebrows rose. "Zack, ever since we awakened, we all knew that you and Cody were the ones that were supposed to save the world. And Max and I quickly agreed that whatever it took, we were going to protect you and Cody so that could happen. It just…" he let out a deep breath. "Caught up to her sooner than we thought."

Zack slowly nodded. "How are Kuroko and Kagenui dealing?"

"Just like with everything else, they're not showing much emotion," Tapeworm shrugged. "But, he was their family, the only thing that they had to lean on in WingzCorp, because they were taken from their parents. I think they're trying to figure out how and why he would protect you when you two basically hated each other." Zack hesitated, wondering how to ask the next question. Tapeworm must have known what he was thinking, for he jumped in an answered the unknown questions. "Riley's doing fine, I guess, for someone who had just lost a friend." He crossed his arms over his chest. "She's reacting in the same way I figure Rhuben would over Reihu, Patrick and Noah over Tori and Tora, and Sydney over Cindy. In some way, even though it was never really shown, they were all friends with each other."

"Am I the only one that finds it ironic that Core was trying to _protect _them this whole time and was the one that also pushed them away?" Zack asked with a snort. He sighed and kicked at the ground. "She won't even look at me." He remarked.

"Give her time, Zack," Tapeworm stated, reaching out a hand and gripped his shoulder hard. "With all of the death that they've seen in their lives…she's probably going to break down eventually and you can be there when that happens. Besides, with this whole prophecy thing, she must be worried that-"he paused when Zack whipped his head around at him. "Patrick and Noah didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?" Zack asked through gritted teeth.

"There's a prophecy," Tapeworm replied and then explained to Zack what he had been told. "They easily figured out that the first two people in it are you and Cody, but we're not sure about everything else about it."

"Why wouldn't they have told me that?" Zack asked, reaching up and scratching his forehead, now confused and angry.

"The same reason they haven't told us anything else until they need to," Tapeworm replied as if it was obvious. "To protect you. They didn't tell us about their powers first, because they knew that you could be awakened at any moment, and then did when it happened. They didn't tell us about their abuse because they were afraid that if we found out and told the police, Robert would have gone after you guys. They didn't tell us about Halo Syndicate and went off to work on it on their own because they felt guilty about having brought us into it in the first place and wanted to do all they could to keep things from getting this far." He noticed the odd look on Zack's face at eth last part. "They didn't have to tell me that part, I always knew that they felt guilty about everything."

"You're not a braniac for a reason." Zack commented, causing Tapeworm to give a fleeting smile. "Do you know anything about the plan that is being put together?"

"What plant?" Tapeworm replied slowly. "I didn't know there was one."

"Knowing Cody," Zack paused for a few seconds. "He's getting to be as tired as I am about sitting around and doing nothing."

* * *

"Where are you going?" Core asked as he walked out of the front door of the house, watching s his former workers turned and looked back at him. Reihu was the only one that wasn't with them, and he wasn't surprised in the slightest. Koto, in some form of the word, was Reihu's friend. And Core knew that Reihu wasn't going to allow Koto's death to drive him away, even if he didn't say it out loud or outwardly show it.

"Where does it look like?" Kuroko replied as Kagenui shifted his cousin in his arms. "We're going to bury him and then leave."

"And go where?"

"Who knows," Tori replied bitterly. "There aren't many places that we can go and be accepted." She shrugged. "But we'll deal with it. Just like we have ever since you left."

Core rolled his eyes, refraining from the urge to shake his head. Clearly, they didn't get it. They didn't get that he was trying to find more information on Gattaca and Zhane so he could go back and help them. They didn't get that he had been watching them the whole time, making sure that nothing happened to them. But it didn't matter at this point, no matter how hard he tried to make sure that people were safe, it just continued to cause others to get killed. First Reed, Ruriko, and Kristine; some of his best friends, and now Koto and Max. It was like he couldn't win.

"I know that I'm not going to be able to say anything that will make you trust me," Core said slowly. "Especially not after how I used you guys and treated you horribly when I was trying to prevent all of this from happening." He admitted it out loud, something that he hadn't been able to do before. "But I truly am sorry for everything that's going on."

"I don't believe you," Cindy shook her head.

"I didn't expect you would," Core returned easily. "But I needed to say it anyway."

"So what now?" Kuroko crossed his arms over his chest. "What are you going to do that will make things better for us?"

"There's nothing that I _can_ do," Core replied as calmly as he possibly could. He knew that it was a stretch that things would go the way he wanted it to, but at least he was getting some sort of closure. "I can't give you your lives back; I can't re-wind time and allow you to stay with your families because I was selfish. I was a young and I had just lost my friends to something that I was fascinated with, and I wanted to make things right, but I made other lives worse. I could apologize for that all day, but it wouldn't change anything."

"You're right."

"So, with everything that you do, I wish you luck." Core took a step back as he nodded. "I don't know how much that'll mean to you, but I truly do mean it."

Kuroko looked over at Kagenui, who glared back at Core and turned away. Kuroko and the others then turned and followed Kagenui up the road.

Core didn't stop watching them until they were out of sight..and still, he continued to stand on the porch, staring in the direction that they had walked away…

* * *

**A/N: **I realized that I hadn't shown anyone else from WingzCorp for a while, and I realized that all of them except for Reihu and Koto weren't that important to the story, as they were/are secondary characters. That's why, in this chapter, I made it that they all left, saying that everything that they needed to do was done. And in a way, it was, they found out the truth about WingzCorp and Halo Syndicate and they brought all of the information that Core knew about it to the Suite Life Gang (which we had dubbed the group a while ago) and there wasn't much else for them to do. I hope you liked the part I had with them and Core finally making amends of some sort.

Also, I after this chapter, the story goes back to focus on Bailey, like it was at the beginning of the story. The story picks up again for the last chapters. You'll see if Julius' plan of her going into Gattaca's head will work, and like I said before, she'll see her family once more. Then the preparation for/and the final battle. There's also going to be a much needed ZackxCody brotherly-love moment in the next chapter as well.

Cheers,

-Riles


	62. It's better this way

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

* * *

Bailey tried not to fidget as Aaron pressed tiny electrodes to the sides of her head and her forehead. She looked around the room, her anxiety rising as she did so. Christian, Core, Cody, Crystal, Noah, Julius, and Maddie were sitting around the room, watching silently.

"A-are, you sure this is a good idea?" she asked nervously, tightening her grip on the stool that she was sitting on. "What if something goes wrong?"

"Well, technically," Julius crossed his arms. "Nothing is ever really a good idea unless you try it," he continued as Maddie turned and glared at him. "But it's just an idea, and if something goes wrong, we're all here to help in the best way that we can." He gave her a reassuring smile, but she still continued to be nervous.

_What if Gattaca somehow finds a way to get into my head and…take me over or something? _Bailey looked down at her feet as she slowly kicked them back and forth, her anxiety slowly rising as she continued to sit there. Her eyes darted over to Christian and Core, who were talking quietly, looking at clipboards in their hands and gesturing towards the monitors and computers around the room. _I know they're scientists, but what if they mess something up? It happens all the time."_

"Before you do this," Noah spoke up after a second, scratching the side of his head, before resting his arms on his knees. "Wouldn't it be better if she did a test first?" He shook his hair out of his face. "Gattaca is, like, the strongest thing we've ever had to face, what if she tries to get into his head and he finds a way to get a hold of her?" It was like he was reading her mind.

"Well," Christian turned to his nephew, an interested expression on his face. "What do you have in mind?"

Noah hesitated for a moment, as if he was still figuring out a plan himself. "What if you try to get into someone else's mind first? To get started, and then work your way up to Gattaca? Like, try to get into Cody's or Maddie's heads, then into, say, Rhu's head, and _then_ into Gattaca?" He cracked his knuckles. "That way if she had problems with any of them, we'd be ready for it before you get to Gattaca."

"The question is though; do we have the time to try the three of them?" Crystal reminded him. "Because when it comes to things like this, time is our enemy and our friend."

Christian let out a sigh through his nose and rested his clipboard against his face. He was silent for a few moments before he lowered the clipboard and looked around the room, rubbing his chin as he did so. He stared at Bailey for a few moments and then finally made up his mind.

"It's probably best if we started with Rhuben and then went onto Gattaca," He said slowly. "Like Crys said, time is of the essence. I like Noah's idea of starting out small and then getting bigger, but from what I can tell, getting into Cody's or Maddie's, or even your head," he motioned to Cody, Maddie, and Noah in turn. "Would be too easy, and easy is something that we don't need."

"Got it." Noah nodded.

"Ok Bailey," Corey walked over to the girl, setting down his clipboard and making sure all of the electrodes were put in the right places. "What we want you to do is try to connect with Geneva and use her abilities to try and get into Rhuben's head. We're not sure if that's even possible, but that's what we're setting out to do."

Bailey nodded mutely.

"It's alright if you're scared, Bailey." Cody said reassuringly. "That's the thing with elementals, you're scared all the time, you don't know what's going to happen, and you don't know if plans are going to work. But you have to try."

Bailey nodded again and closed her eyes. She sat there for a few seconds, trying to push all thoughts away, but then they came flying back, pushing in each and every piece of anxiety that she had come upon her in the last couple of days. But then she felt Geneva take her over…she could feel her power moving into her body once more. It was as if she had a blanket wrapped around her to keep her warm and to keep her safe.

"_What do you need help with my child?" _Geneva asked, her voice filling Bailey's head.

_We have a theory, _Bailey thought in reply. _We want to try and get into Gattaca's head with your help. Maybe so we can see what he's planning so we know how to plan for it. _

"_Open your eyes, Bailey."_

Bailey did as she was told and gasped when she noticed that everything around them was white. She was in a white abyss; she looked down and noticed that she was sitting on the ground, not on a stool like she had originally been. She slowly got to her feet and turned around, smiling when she spotted Geneva in front of her, her clothes and hair blowing back as if there was wind blowing, but Bailey didn't feel anything. Geneva walked forward and placed a hand on Bailey's cheek.

"Geneva," Bailey smiled warmly before she turned serious once more. "We need your help. We need to be able to get into Gattaca's head. We figured that you would be able to help us because he's your brother and you're really close to him."

"I can't do that." Geneva shook her head.

Bailey blinked once, taken aback. She thought that it would be simple. Much easier than that, but she guessed that Christian was right. They didn't need easy. "Are you sure?"

"Bailey, we control light and darkness for specific reasons." Geneva replied. "I can't get into his head and he can't get into mine. The balance of the world fails without each other, and they work with each other well, but they also can't mesh in the way that you would like them to."

"Oh," Bailey lowered her head. "But we're in the fight of our lives, at least we're going to be soon and we need all the help that we can-"

"Bailey, that's not what you really need right now." Geneva interrupted gently. "You need to see your family, that's what you've been longing for this whole time. You miss your home and your family." She then grabbed onto Bailey's hand and turned her around. "Come here, child, I'll show you what your family has been going through."

Bailey followed closely behind Geneva as they walked further into the white abyss. Slowly, the white disappeared and Bailey realized that she was standing on the lawn of her house. She was staring at her house, her farm, in Kettlecorn. She was home.

As she watched, the front door to her house opened and her mother, father, and grandmother walked out, holding onto bouquets of flowers. They walked over to the corner of the front lawn and placed the flowers on the ground, in front of a picture frame. Bailey looked at Geneva before hurrying over to her parents and looking down at the picture frame. Her mouth dropped open when she saw that it was a picture of her, taken before she had gotten on the SS Tipton.

_What's going on _Bailey asked herself as she looked at her parents.

"They think you're dead, Bailey," Geneva spoke up. "The news from the SS Tipton…there was a storm, and the boat capsized…not everyone survived."

"Really?" Bailey turned back to Geneva. "What about London? And Marcus? And Woody? Addison? Moseby?" She grabbed onto her arms. "Are they ok? What happened to them?"

"Bailey, there was no accident, I merely gave them the thought and broadcasted to them that there was an accident." Geneva replied calmly. "I did that to make sure that your family stayed safe with everything that was going on. I care about you Bailey, and having to see your family suffer, I thought would be something that you wouldn't want." She brushed Bailey's hair off of her forehead. "I hope this didn't upset you."

Bailey walked over to her mother and placed a hand on her cheek, smiling as she felt the warmth under her skin, knowing that her mother could feel her touch. It was comforting, she could see her family whenever she wanted, and she could keep an eye on them.

Maybe things _were_ better this way?

"What do you think, child?" Geneva asked, turning back to her. "Do you want to go see them?"

"No," Bailey replied after a second, shaking her head. She took a deep breath as tears came to her eyes. "No, it's better if they think that I'm dead. That way they won't get pulled into this as well, they won't have to constantly worry about me." She rubbed her cheeks. "I'd like to be able to say goodbye, but it will just cause too many problems for them." She looked at Geneva once more. "I'd like to go back."

"Then open your eyes."

Bailey opened her eyes once more and blinked when she spotted Crystal's face in her own. Crystal reached out and started to pull the electrodes from the sides of Bailey's head, turning to speak to Core and Christian over her shoulder. "I told you that you used too much power when reading her brain waves, you knocked her out in less than three seconds."

"Are you ok?" Cody asked anxiously. "What did you see? Can Geneva help us?"

Bailey raised her hands to her head as she looked around at the others in the classroom. She then sighed as she slowly shook her head. "She said that she can't get into his head because light and darkness doesn't work that way. They can live with each other, but they can't mesh, at least that's what Geneva said." She paused, wanting to tell them about the SS Tipton and her family, but in the end decided not to. "I didn't really see much else besides that."

"You sure?" Christian prompted. "Because we're going to know everything so that it can help us."

"Yeah, that's all." Bailey nodded and turned to Julius and Maddie with a poor shrug. "I'm sorry your plan didn't work, I tried."

"It's alright," Julius said as he rubbed his chin. "It's better that we tried something than just sit here and do nothing." He then ran his hands over his face. "I guess that all we can do right now is continue to keep sparring and working out as we wait for everything to come to a head." He turned to Core. "Are you having any luck tracking down HaloSyndicate?"

"I'm working on it." Core replied stiffly.

"In the meantime, Julius is right," Christian stated. "You all need to make sure that you're in top shape, so you need to start working out, I'll run some tests while you do it." He turned to Crystal. "Do you mind turning off the monitors and grabbing my laptop before you go?"

"Sure, daddy." Crystal replied with a short nod and went to work, unhooking the electrodes and wrapping them up before placing them in a drawer as the others left the basement.

"I saw that," Cody said as he walked over and stood next to Crystal, watching as she pressed numerous buttons on a monitor and watched as it shut off. She looked at him out of the corner of his eye, giving him a questioning look as she moved across eh room to another monitor. "With Bailey, I saw that." He clarified.

"Saw what?" Crystal asked.

"You care about her."

"I care about a lot of people."

Cody rolled his eyes, giving a soft smile as he continued to watch her move around, shutting off different monitors, feeds, and tubes. He reached out and grabbed onto her arm as she moved by him again. "Hey, it's me, talk to me," he searched her eyes with his. "Please?"

"About what?" she replied innocently, shrugging. "The fact that I just figured out that elementals have run in my family for years but my parents didn't tell me?" She scratched the back of her neck. "Apart from that, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Core isn't as bad as we originally thought."

"Oh, so that's all that's bothering you?" Cody asked, looking skeptical. "I should have known, considering you've been snapping people like crazy. It all stems back from your Dad doing what he thought was the right thing. Teenage angst, yeah, that makes sense." Crystal shot him a look and he smirked in reply. "C'mon Crys, I know this doesn't have to do with your Dad, Mom, and Grandfather. I can feel it." He paused, waiting for a response, but he didn't get one. "It has to do with Bailey doesn't it?"

"What about her?"

"You don't trust her."

Crystal snorted. "What happened to me caring about her?"

"You can care about someone without trusting them." Cody reminded her.

"I don't trust anyone that gets brought up into our business about elementals." Crystal replied. "Especially since she isn't one, I still say that she's gonna cause us nothing but trouble." She scratched her arm. "Anyone that we've ever come across that isn't an elemental has, I'm just trying to limit that."

"But she has a relationship with Geneva that has been able to help us so far," Cody reminded her as patiently as possible. He was starting to get tired of this conversation. "She's been a good friend and she's proven more than once that we can trust her."

Crystal twisted her mouth to the side and jutted out her lower jaw before relaxing and looking Cody straight in the eye. "I saw you kiss her." She stated.

Cody gave her a confused look. "Who?" Crystal shot him a 'duh' look and he nodded, getting the point. "Oh," he rubbed the back of his neck. "Is that what this is about?" He asked slowly. "You don't like Bailey because I…kissed her?"

"Don't be stupid." Crystal snapped.

"I'm not; I'm going with my gut instinct." Cody replied calmly.

"Then your gut instinct is telling you that you don't know me that well if you think I don't like her because you kissed her." Crystal replied. "I have many reasons to not like her. And I've just told you one of them."

"I care about her Crys," Cody said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I care about you, too. You know that. I know you know that." He sighed. "But with Bailey…I don't know, I-"

Crystal placed her hands on Cody's cheeks and took a step forward, kissing him. Cody kissed her back, his eyes showing confusion when she pulled away. "Did you feel anything?" Crystal demanded, staring right at him. Cody opened and closed his mouth and then stayed quiet, not answering her question. But that was answer enough. "That's what I thought." She dropped her hands from his face, turned on her heel, and left the basement.

* * *

"You're still here." Rhuben said without opening her eyes, keeping her hands lightly resting on her knees.

"Yep," Reihu replied shortly as he sat down in a wooden chair, crossing his legs as well as his arms. "I didn't think that leaving was a good idea."

"It was a statement, not a question," Rhuben pointed out as she finally opened her eyes and turned on the bed to face Reihu. "I didn't think that you would leave. You have too much work to do anyway. Besides," she peered closely at him. "It's not like you could leave without getting revenge on the one that killed your best friend."

"Koto wasn't my best friend." Reihu replied shortly.

"Oh really?" Rhuben raised an eyebrow. "Why do you think that Core was always pairing you guys up whenever it came to tasks that he needed to be done?" She continued to watch Reihu's stoic expression. "And why do you think that he put up with you all the time? Your constant questions, your constant annoyances, your hyperness."

"I was a kid." Reihu sounded somewhat embarrassed.

"And yet, he still put up with you." Rhuben reminded him.

Reihu let out a grunt and looked away for a moment as Rhuben closed her eyes once more, taking in a few deep breaths every now and then. "I'm meditating," she said, answering his unasked questions. "It's not easy having the power of darkness; you have to make sure that you can control it whenever it tries to take you over. So Syd and I would regularly meditate so we could make sure that things were going ok," She gave a short chuckle. "It's better than being hooked up to machines all the time to test your levels of energy."

Reihu tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling. _Was he really my friend? _

He thought about it. He guessed that they were friends of some sort. Rhuben was right; they did continuously get paired up to do things together whenever Core needed things done. At that time he thought that Core was a heartless human being, the only time that he felt that Core even had some sort of emotion was when he has asked Core if he could go home, shortly after he became a DarkLion. He was tired of working to the bone and wanted to get back to a sense of normalcy. And then Core threw him for a loop, he basically told Reihu that he needed to follow his heart before his mind. At the time, Reihu thought that Core was completely nuts, but he stayed anyway.

_Why? _Reihu wondered to himself. _Why did I stay for so long?_

He guessed that those in WingzCorp did eventually become family to him. And he guessed Koto did become a friend of his, as he didn't have any family members in the organization like so many of the others did. He had heard what Core said to the other when they had left with Koto's body; he wanted to keep his friends and their family safe, which is why he did everything that he had done. Is that what he was trying to tell Reihu, is that why he stayed? Had his heart told him that he wanted to stay at WingzCorp so he could protect his friends? It wasn't completely irrational, it was possible. He did have some sort of a feeling of loyalty to them, even if they did leave.

"Having a friend isn't that hard of a concept," Rhuben stated, causing Reihu to look at him again. "I mean, I didn't think that I was going to make friends with Zack _or_ Cody when I first met them, but since they awakened, and because we were all fighting for the same thing, friendship with them came easily."

"But that doesn't mean that you trust them enough to tell them everything." Reihu pointed out.

"Everyone has their secrets." She replied pulling her hair up into a ponytail and dropping them over her shoulders. "Even you."

Reihu looked at her and didn't say anything. He studied her carefully, wondering why he spent so many years chasing after her if she didn't do anything for him. Well, that wasn't exactly true, she gave him black eyes, knocked some of his teeth out, even broken bones, but she never really gave him anything besides that. Not even when she was in WingzCorp herself.

"Am I your friend?" He asked her suddenly. Rhuben stayed silent as she slowly raised her eyebrows.

"Yes." She replied after a second.

"You didn't even think about it." Reihu stated.

"I didn't have to." Rhuben replied, shaking her head. "If there's one thing that I've learned over the years, it's that life is too short and that with us, our lives can end even quicker than anyone else." She cracked her knuckles. "And you need to make sure that you have your friends around you for support in whatever you do. And while you do-"

"Did." Reihu interrupted.

"_Did_ annoy me to no end," Rhuben corrected herself. "You at least didn't treat me like dirt like the rest of the DarkLions did before they trust me. I mean, I understood why they were so wary about it, but you never treated me badly." She scratched her forehead. "I never forgot that over the years, not even when Robert was around and beating us up on a daily basis."

"Sorry about that." Reihu didn't know why he apologized, but he did.

"Don't be," Rhuben shook her head. "It was a good learning experience." She laughed bitterly, rolling her eyes. Reihu shrugged and looked away once more, falling silent again. She looked at her watch and got off of her bed, stretching. She closed her eyes briefly and then when she opened them again, she turned to Reihu. "Uncle Christian and Julius want us to start training so we can be sure to be ready for Gattaca."

"Do you think we can beat him?" Reihu asked, getting off of the chair as well.

Rhuben sucked a deep breath through her nose as she looked down at her hands. _Never get your hopes up about anything. _She thought to herself. _That's what Dad used to tell us all the time. He knew about the elemental world before we did, so he might have known that we were going to go against Gattaca one day. _She closed her hands into fists and looked up at Reihu once more, not saying a word, keeping her eyes on him.

"You don't think we can." Reihu stated after a minute of silence.

Rhuben let out a heavy sigh, placing her hands on her hips. She thought for a few more seconds, choosing her words carefully before speaking. "I think we have a good chance…but we shouldn't underestimate him."

Reihu nodded. It was the best that he could expect. She was as mysterious as always, speaking her mind, but not letting him know _exactly _what she was thinking. She was always mysterious that way, and he was always somewhat jealous of her ability to do that. Not showing all of her emotion so she wouldn't be taken advantage of. He wished that he could do that, but he was always the kind of person that as soon as he felt something, he had to show it. He lifted his eyes when he noticed that she had taken a few steps closer to him.

He licked his lips. "Don't…" he warned her, his voice under his breath. He unconsciously took a step towards her. His hands twitched with restraint, but the second her dark blue eyes met his mossy green ones, he rushed towards her with so much force it tore a gasp from her lips before his mouth descended upon hers.

At first, his lips just touched hers, so gently, so soft, that she felt as if he had put a feather instead of his mouth on her. And then he began to move underneath her, the lump of his lips brushing over hers. Her eyes slowly opened when he pulled back.

"Huh," Reihu ran a hand over his mouth. "Hard to believe that that could quite possibly be the last thing I experience before I die."

"Kiss of Death?" Rhuben added onto the joke.

"Exactly."

* * *

Noah walked into the room that he, Patrick, Sydney, and Aaron shared and watched as Patrick scribbled something on a sheet of paper before crossing it out. "What are you doing? We're supposed to start working out and sparring."

"I'm thinking-"

"Don't hurt yourself." Noah interrupted, walking over to stand next to his twin.

"Haha," Patrick rolled his eyes. 'I'm thinking that we might be able to figure out what this prophecy means. And if we do that sooner rather than later, then we might be able to defeat Gattaca sooner." He explained. "But I'm still stuck with the eighteen years thing."

"You got a point there," Noah commented. He grabbed the notepad from Patrick's hand and looked it over himself. _The one with the eyes red as fire, the one with the eyes shocking as sea, the ones whose inheritance the white pure blade. To voyage eighteen years from since they'd come, or the world in their hands would cease to become. _He thought to himself, reading over the prophecy a few times before sitting on the floor, writing a bit on the notepad. As Patrick looked over his shoulder, he wrote out the prophecy and then wrote Zack's and Cody's names over the parts that they had already figured out.

But what did the pure white blade and the voyage of eighteen years mean? Did it mean that Gattaca had been alive and around for 18 years? Or did it mean that it was going to be 18 years since something catastrophic had happened.

"Yeah, I'm not sure about that part as well." Patrick said with a heavy sigh as he looked over the notepad.

"There's so many things that it could mean," Noah murmured, tapping his chin with the pen. "The eighteen years thing, it could mean since the elemental world started to fall into irreversible chaos, or wince Gattaca has been around, it could mean a lot of things." _Eighteen years…eighteen years….eighteen years…_Noah's eyes flew wide open as he wrote 18 years over the words. To him, it looked like he was writing out someone's age.

_Age huh? Wait! That's it! Maybe it has to do with Zack and Cody's age…they're almost 18 and it's been a while since they awakened. Maybe that's what it means. But the voyage…that doesn't make sense. They haven't awakened since they were born, so they haven't been elementals for eight years. _Noah let out a sound of frustration. _But then maybe it could be Ri and Rhu…they haven't been elementals since they were born either…but they have been longer than Zack and Cody. But it also might not be them since it's talking about a white pure blade and being associated with darkness can't mean that it's for them._

But what else could it mean? Pure white. White blade. White….white….light? Anything that has to do with white is generally referred to as innocence and light, so…

"Pat, I think I've got it!" Noah said, his eyes growing wide with shock.

"Got what?" Patrick asked, still staring at the notepad. "Because I'm still confused."

"I think I've figured out the prophecy," Noah replied as calmly as possible, but the intuition that had just struck him was too exciting to ignore. "Well, except the eighteen years thing. Anyway, this part with the pure white blade, what if that has to do with Bailey? White usually has to do with the element of light, but since we don't have anyone here with the element of light, and Bailey has direct relation to it, it has to be her!"

"But the blade?" Patrick looked skeptical. "She doesn't have a weapon."

"But think of the time frame," Noah insisted. "We figured out about the prophecy shortly after we found out about Halo Syndicate. How do we know that during that time, Geneva hadn't already moved onto Bailey, like Gattaca had done with Zhane, years before?"

"I getcha," Patrick nodded slowly. "So Bailey could potentially be the one that's hold onto the pure white blade." He paused. "But it says the 'ones' that inherit the pure white blade. So that means more than one, so it's not Bailey."

"It might be Bailey, and someone else," Noah shook his head. "The question there is who and why." He paused. "But that's not the biggest problem, if what I've concluded is right, this war is going to end sooner than we had anticipated." He looked up at his brother grimly. "Way sooner."

"And that means..."

"We have to figure out this prophecy in it's entirety soon or we might as well be saying our prayers."

* * *

**A/N: **Whew, a long chapter for you guys with a little bit of everything in it. Some fighting and some romance, as well as some answers with the prophecy. Of course things are only going to get bigger with the next few chapters until the end. I have a really big battle planned and I hope that I can portray it in the way that I see it in my mind. In case you were wondering, I didn't put Ziley in this chapter because I wanted to focus on the other pairings, but it'll be in the next chapter. Also, I decided to move the ZackxCody part to the next chapter, since it will be right before the big battle.

What did you think about Geneva NOT being able to help Gattaca? I thought it made sense in the fact that while darkness and light need each other to survive, they can't really mesh together. Also, what did you think of the work on the prophecy at the end. I haven't revealed anything yet, so you can still guess what it all means.

I'll update again soon.

Cheers,

-Riles


	63. Buddy

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

* * *

"Zack?" Cody walked into the guest room that was set up for him and his brother and looked over at one of the beds. Zack was lying down on his back, staring at the ceiling. "Zack, what are you doing?"

"Staring at the ceiling." Zack replied in almost a whisper, not moving from his spot.

"I can see that." Cody remarked as he walked across the room and sat down on the end of the bed.

"So why did you ask?"

Cody ignored the sarcastic response and crossed his legs, resting his chin on his elbows. He knew something was up with Zack, he could feel it in his gut and he could tell just by one look at his brother's face when he got back. The two of them…ever since they were young, Cody had a feeling that they were bonded by more than being twin brothers. It was like they shared one soul, whenever Zack got hurt, Cody managed to feel pain in the same spot, even if he was completely healthy. If Zack got sick, he got sick out of sympathy. The time Cody got a black eye from not catching a football correctly, Zack ended up getting a bruise around his eye, even though he wasn't hit. Neither of them were able to explain why it was possible, and it had it's up and downs. It was a good thing, if they ever needed help from the other, they could just feel it. But it was a bad thing if the other was stressed or worried, because they could feel that as well.

But now, Cody knew that there was something really wrong with his brother. Something even bigger than they had ever had to deal with before. He saw a bit of it when their parents rejected them and ran off, but now it seemed like whatever it was, was haunting his twin brother.

"You know, I can feel your eyes burning holes in the side of my head." Zack commented as he sat up and looked right at Cody. It seemed like Cody was looking at a hollow version of Zack's old self, and that really scared him.

"Zack," Cody whispered. "What's wrong?"

Zack let out a heavy sigh, bringing his face into his hands, shaking his head back and forth. Cody wasn't sure if he was going to say anything until he finally opened his mouth, taking a shuddering breath, and opened his mouth to reply. "I can't sleep. I haven't really been able to since we awakened, but lately it's been worse." He kept his face in his hands as he continued. "Can anyone blame me? It may seem like nothing, that it's a part of life. Sure, a little mishap, you'll get over it. But it was something that I never wanted to even think about."

"Max and Koto?" Cody guessed.

Zack nodded. "I can't help but think it's my fault, because partially it is. They were trying to keep me safe, and it all just ended up blowing up in my face. All I do now is think about everything that has happened. And it's really starting to get to me." He lifted his face from his hands and looked Cody in the eye once more. "It's starting to push me one step closer to the brink. It makes me want to scream, and I try sometimes, but nothing comes out. So what's the point? What's the point in screaming for help when no one can help and no one wants to help?" He reached out and grabbed onto Cody's shoulders. "This is what I think about. All the time. I don't have anything else to do, I can't think, every time I do it makes it worse."

"Zack, if this wasn't supposed to happen, it wouldn't have." Cody shook his head, trying to speak calmly, trying to keep his voice from quivering. It was really weird to him, to see Zack breaking down so badly. He knew, in the back of his mind, that it was going to happen eventually. There as going to be one incident that none of them would ever forget, but he didn't think it would actually happen. "You said so before, you said that we got these powers for a reason. We have Blazen and Phantom and all of our friends…and these powers for a reason." He paused and studied Zack's face. "Did you hear about the prophecy?"

"Tape told me," Zack mumbled in reply. "When'd you hear it?"

"Christian just told me a few moments ago," Cody explained. "Patrick and Noah found out some of it, but now Christian and Core are working on it." He wiped his hands off on the sides of his shorts. "If anyone besides Syd, I'm sure they can figure out what's going on." He cleared his throat. "But that's my point Zack, you and I, we're supposed to the save the two world. This was supposed to happen. The element of fire lives in side you."

"That's the point I don't get," Zack gave a hollow laugh. "Why would the element of fire want to live inside of me? Can't it see what a failure I am?"

"Zack, you're _not _a failure!"Cody reached out and grabbed onto his brother's shoulders, shaking him. "That's just the depression talking."

"What?" Zack blinked once.

"Depression," Cody licked his lips and started to rattle off the facts that he knew about the disease straight from memory. "It may be described as feeling sad, blue, unhappy, miserable, or down in the dumps. Most of us feel this way at one time or another for short periods. True clinical depression is a mood disorder in which feelings of sadness, loss, anger, or frustration interfere with everyday life for weeks or longer." He looked at the ceiling as he thought and then looked back down at Zack again. "Symptoms include: agitation, change in appetite, often with weight gain or loss, problems concentrating, fatigue, a feeling of hopelessness, a feeling of worthlessness, being withdrawn, loss of interest, thoughts of death, trouble or excessive sleeping."

Zack shook his head and looked away. _He doesn't understand. He doesn't get it._

"I _do _get it," Cody insisted, as if he had read Zack's mind. All of this stress for the past few years has slowly started to get to you. Along with the frustration of not being able to defeat Zhane/Gattaca as quickly as you would like, like we used to be able to do with all of our other enemies. Add in that mom and dad left, all of Boston is starting to empty out, the prophecy and one of his henchmen just killed two of our friends, your mind couldn't take it."

He reached out and grabbed onto his brother's hands. "But you can get through this, with me. I'm going to be right by your side, like always, helping you whenever you need it." He snorted. "Which, let's face it, you need a _lot_."

Now it was Zack's turn to snort. He looked up as Blazen and Phantom appeared on the bed in between the twin boys. Blazen fluffed out his wings and looked at Zack curiously. "If you weren't supposed to hold the element of fire, I wouldn't be here, and I wouldn't be assigned to you. This was your destiny before you were born."

"And destiny always has a way of fulfilling itself," Phantom added. "So when Cody says that this was supposed to happen, he was right. Things were supposed to happen this while," he nodded. "And while it is sad that you had to lose some friends along the way, it's nothing compared to the goal that you all are trying to reach."

Zack reached out and rubbed Blazen on the head.

He was still pretty skeptical and he knew that he wasn't going to get over Max's and Koto's deaths anytime soon. There was no way that he would ever forget it, and that's what made Zack, Zack. If someone was wronged, he was going to do everything in his power to make sure that the other person knew what they had done. It was like with the dome of fire…he had felt unnatural rage that he had never felt before and he was able to create that.

Then Patrick and Noah were wary around him because he was able to show so much power and not have a ways to control it…

"What?" Cody asked, his eyes widening for a second. Zack looked at him curiously. "You just had this…really evil look on your face."

Then Zack got it. Even if you had a element that was considered a proportion of light, and even if you had never been face-to-face with or taken over by darkness, there was always a tiny bit of that in everyone. That's probably what caused his crushing depression and doubts that he had experienced. He could still feel it though; it wasn't going to go away any time soon. But he knew that with a lot of work and help from his brother, he'd be able to get through it.

"I just had an idea," Zack replied slowly. "And it might be able to help us, but," he held up a finger. "First, we're going to need to figure out the whole prophecy."

"And?" Cody prompted.

"And…" Zack trailed off for a second. "We're going to need Bailey and it could…quite possibly…you know," he shrugged, suddenly reverting back to his hollowed state, although his eyes seemed to stay bright. "Completely break off her connection with Geneva. But it might also get us into Gattaca's head, since your original idea didn't work."

"Well," Cody frowned for a moment, looking conflicted and then nodded. "I'm willing to give it a try."

Zack gave a half-smile. "Thanks, Buddy."

"No problem, Buddy."

* * *

**A/N: **I decided to leave Ziley out of this chapter because it wasn't nearly as important as the ZackxCody part was, so that's why I made this whole chapter focus on Zack and Cody. Next chapter is them preparing for the final battle, then the final battle, then the epilogue. (So there's about 65 or 66 chapters in this story if my calculations are correct). So it'll definitely get back to the action and everything for the end. They're going to be really long chapters too, probably about 10,000 words each or so, just so I can make sure that it lives up to the hype. Hahaha.

Anyway, I wanted this chapter to show that Zack can be just as weak as Cody and that Cody can be just as strong as Zack. The fact that Zack's depression brought them closer together and being able to see both sides of them, I had for a while and am glad that I was finally able to write it. Although the chapter is a bit shorter than I would have liked. The ending was kind of lack-luster but that's only because I didn't know how to end it; Zack is the kind of guy that I can see becoming depressed, but with his personality, I don't think that he would be that way for very long, so…

I'll update again soon.

Cheers,

-Riles


	64. Happy Birthday

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

* * *

"Ouch!" Bailey brought both of her hands to the top of her head and rubbed the bump that was forming as Patrick stood across from her, smiling. "I said _attack_ me, not bash my head in." She stuck her lower lip out in a perfect pout, hoping to gain some sympathy from the teenage boy that stood across from her.

Patrick merely chuckled in reply. "Just be glad I used the blunt end of my spear," Patrick replied as he motioned to the sharpened end that was pointed behind him. "Or my scythe for that matter."

Bailey sighed as she continued to rub her head, looking around the backyard at her friends, who were sparring with each other. Christian and Core were walking around, taking notes and giving out pointers whenever they needed it. Bailey couldn't help but feel overwhelmed about everything. Their fighting….the sparring that they were working on…it just meant that they would be going into their final battle soon. And who knew if they were going to come back from that.

_One false move and you could be killed without being given the chance to blink. _Bailey mused as she looked around the group.

She was moderately surprised to see Aaron fighting Tapeworm. While Tapeworm stayed close to the ground, to utilize his powers of nature, Aaron stayed up above him, using mostly his feet to keep the advantage over him. It wasn't that odd, she had heard that if you lose one of your senses, the others are heightened, so it would make sense as to why he was able to fight with such agility and grace. But for all she knew, he didn't have an element, but he was able to understand things just as easily as anyone else. It also seemed to make him a phenomenal fighter, as he didn't seem to have broken a sweat while fighting against Tapeworm.

The latter, on the other hand, she wasn't sure about.

She knew that Tapeworm was loyal and that he would do anything to protect his friends, but just having lost his girlfriend, she wasn't sure how he would be able to fight and act like nothing was wrong. Sure, they were used to it, they had said that many times before. But she didn't believe in a second that you could watch someone die and then go ahead and act like nothing happened.

_It's the way they grieve I suppose_ Bailey thought as she placed her hands on her hips. _It's just like the Jacksons, they haven't really said anything about their parents dying or Koto or anything else, they just keep going one day at a time. Focusing on what's bothering them right at that moment. But that can't be healthy…_

Bailey let out a shriek as her feet were whipped out from underneath her and she went slamming to the ground. Groaning, Bailey opened her eyes to see Patrick standing above her, an amused expression on his face. He turned his spear around and shoved the sharp end into the ground.

"Just a piece of advice, Bailey," Patrick pointed out patiently. "It's not a good idea to get distracted when you're fighting someone."

"I'll keep that in mind," Bailey commented as she continued to lie on her back on the ground. At that point, she was glad that no one was watching her. Even though she knew that she was a very important part of the group, she felt that she was still in the way when it came to something like this. She had stumbled upon it on accident, and then had been thrust into everything, because they needed to be sure that she could keep quiet.

_Was it really that long ago? _She asked herself. _When I had found out what was going on?_

She remembered it like it was yesterday, even though it was probably almost a year ago now. She was wondering why Zack and Cody were acting so strange. Usually, Cody would partner with her for a project, but this time he had partnered with Zack. And then had become super serious and jumpy whenever she was around. Who knew that when they got to Greece, it was when everything was going to blow up in their faces?

_"Hey, where are Zack and Cody?" I asked out loud, not realizing that they weren't with us. Neither was Woody for that matter. Some Italians looked at me with odd expressions on their faces and I quickly made a face of apology before leaving the little shop and looking around. I spotted Woody walking towards me, snacking on some pastry thing. "Hey, Woody, have you seen Zack and Cody?"_

_"Yeah, they're right behind me, we stopped to get something to eat," Woody replied as he motioned behind him with his shoulder, still shoving the pastry into his mouth._

_I looked over Woody's shoulder and saw that he was right. But as I watched, Zack and Cody stopped walking and stiffened suddenly, as if they had heard something and looked around nervously, but also looked like they were expecting it too._

_"Hey guys, we have to go and….find a gift for mom," Zack stated, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder as Cody nodded in agreement. "So we'll just meet you guys back at the boat later. I mean, you don't want to wait around for us while we shop."_

_"I'll come with you guys." I offered as I started to walk towards them. Zack's face was clear, but Cody's looked scared and impatient. "I mean," I giggled a little bit to ease the tension that was in the air. "You're going to need a woman's touch aren't you?"_

_"Not really," Zack smiled and slapped his brother on the shoulder. "Cody already acts like a girl and he's sensitive to their feelings and stuff," he rolled his eyes. "So we don't really need your help. So you should just go away. Right now."_

_"Zack!" Cody hissed._

_"What's going on?" I demanded, crossing my arms over my chest and staring right at Cody, knowing that he hated to lie._

_"Trust is, Bailey, we…uh, we," Cody started to snap his fingers, as if that would help him remember what he was trying to say. "Truth is that we want to keep it a total and complete surprise, even from you! You know how our mom and dad just came to the SS Tipton randomly last time? I wouldn't want that to happen again while we're talking about her gift."_

_"Oh," I replied as I slowly lowered my arms and gave an understanding smile. "Yeah, I understand, go on ahead."_

_"Thanks Bailey," Cody patted my shoulder gently before turning around and walked away, with Zack at his side. "We'll meet you guys back at the ship later."_

_"Later!" Woody called through a full mouth. I winced as some of the pastry that was in his mouth splattered on my face. "Oops, sorry Bailey."_

_"It's ok, Woody." I replied sarcastically as I gently wiped at my face. "If you wanted to share the pastry with me, you should have at least asked me first." When I was done clearing off my face I saw Zack and Cody running back down the street and disappeared around the corner._

_Now that was really odd, as there were no shops over there that we could afford anything from. And the only way that I knew that was because of the fact that it had taken London hours to get out of that district before finding Giorgio Armani and going off with him._

_I was too suspicious of everything that was going to listen to the part of me that was yelling for me not to go off after them. In Venice there were a lot of stories of people being mugged and having their things stolen, but right now I didn't care. I just wanted to find out what Zack and Cody were hiding from us, their friends._

_"Woody, what shop did you get that from?" I asked, turning to the curly haired boy. He carelessly pointed over his shoulder. I nodded and turned and ran down the street after Zack and Cody, not caring is Woody saw that I wasn't actually going into the bakery._

_I __had__ to find out what was going on._

_I ran aimlessly down the street, taking random turns that went down even more empty streets and over a bridge where I saw a gondola gently moving across the canal. It was weird, I didn't know where I was going, but, I felt that I did know. It was like my body was telling me that what I was doing was the right thing._

_It's Time…_

_I skidded to a stop and looked around in confusion. I could have sworn that I just heard someone say that, but there was no one around. It was then that I realized that I was in a random alleyway, not sure what was going on. I jumped and screamed at the sound of someone crashing into trashcans. Turning around, I saw a blonde haired boy dressed in a black leather jacket, a white t-shirt, and dark blue jeans hauling himself to his feet. A smaller boy with brown hair and wearing a simple t-shirt and jeans suddenly appeared beside him; both of them were glaring up towards the sky._

_I tilted my head back and gasped as Zack and Cody jumped off of the roof of the building that was to my right and landed on the ground, on their feet, as if the fall didn't hurt them._

_'__That's impossible__' I thought to myself, eyes wide with shock. '__No one can jump from that high without breaking their bones and being in extreme pain. What's going on__?'_

_"You have nowhere else t go, Koto" Zack snarled as he and Cody slowly moved forward, hands clenched into fists at their sides. "So you might as well give up now."_

_"Koto?" I whispered, instantly recognizing the so0und._

_"Heh," the blonde boy flicked his head to the side, clenching his hands into fists too as he sank into a fighting stance. "You're mistaken if you think that you'll get the best of me that easily." Cody chuckled._

_"We've beaten you before; we can surely do it again." He called with a hint of cockiness._

_"We'll see about that," the smaller boy replied before charging towards Cody, his hands outstretched. It was then that I noticed that his nails were longer and sharper than finger nails usually were. "Hiya!"_

_Cody lay down on his back and brought his feet up as the smaller boy dove at him. Using his feet, Cody brought his legs up towards his face, using the force to throw the little boy behind him and onto the ground. Koto sighed as he rubbed his face._

_"Reihu, how many times do I or Core have to tell you, make sure that you wait for your opponent to make the __first move__?" Koto stated as he placed his hands on his hips._

_"Don't worry, I can get him!" Reihu replied bravely, as he easily flipped back to his feet. I gasped a little bit and his head whipped around towards me. "Hey, who's this!" he called._

_Zack whirled around and his eyes widened when he saw me. Cody turned around and didn't look surprised at all._

_What the hell was going on?_

And things had greatly progressed after that. She had met Max and Tapeworm, hearing a bit about what had been going on back in Boston at that time. Zack and Cody had been rightfully worried about their parents. _Too bad back then they didn't know that their relationship with them was just going to go downhill. _Bailey thought sadly as she shook her head.

"Bailey?"

Bailey tilted her head back and spotted Core kneeling over her, a slightly amused expression on his otherwise serious face. "Are you just going to lie down there all day? Or is this part of that very intricate plan that only you, Zack and Cody know about?"

"Uhh," Bailey stalled as she got back to her feet. Patrick had his arms crossed over his chest, looking at Core curiously. Unlike before, he didn't seem to be radiating any sense of hostility towards the older man, but was still cautious around him. "You caught me." She gave a short smile and turned away, falling into a fighting stance once more, waiting for Patrick to do so as well.

She knew that she wasn't concentrating as hard as she should have been. But it was so hard to do, especially when so many things had changed over the past year. She looked over at Crystal, who was fighting Noah, her face set in intense determination. They still weren't as close as she would have liked, she considered Crystal a friend, hell, and Crystal was even worried after Bailey had woken up when she tried to contact Geneva. But there was still something that was keeping them apart. She didn't realize it then, but it had been there since they met.

_"Bailey, run!" Zack cried just as Kagenui leapt at me._

_I closed my eyes and turned away, waiting for the pain._

_"Crystal Freeze!"_

_"Water Spirits, Water Bind!"_

_I opened my eyes just in time to see a stream of water shoot out of nowhere and wrap Kagenui up into it. In the cyclone of water Kagenui thrashed around, trying to escape it, but it was obvious that he wasn't going to get out. I watched in awe and a second later the cyclone, with Kagenui in it, froze completely. I would have thought that it was a dream due to the fact that I had blinked right before the ice had formed. But the instant drop in temperature let me know that it was reality._

_Cody got to his feet, just as Koto, Rilian, and Kuroko turned to run away. Zack quickly moved to get in Koto's way as Tapeworm and Max moved to the other areas around him, effectively cutting him off. Koto glared at the three of him as his comrades continued to run away._

_"Take one step and you're definitely going to get knocked out!" Zack warned as Tapeworm cracked his knuckles loudly. Koto's glare turned even colder as he realized that he was caught._

_"Bailey, are you ok?" Cody asked as he hurried over to me._

_"I'm fine Cody," I replied honestly, after checking my arms and legs. "A little shook up, but I'm fine." I looked around, trying to find who trapped Kagenui in the ice. It definitely wasn't Cody as it came from a completely different direction. "Where did that come from?"_

_Max tilted her head to the side as she listened and not taking her eyes off of Kagenui and then pointed straight up. I followed her finger and saw a girl and a young boy standing on a fire escape, leaning over the railing as they looked down, as if seeing if they did a job well done._

_"Crys!" Cody called from next to me, sounding excited. "Syd! Nice timing guys!"_

…

_.._

_._

_"So you're Sydney's cousin" I remarked a few days later as Crystal and I started to walk back towards the secret room. I knew that Woody, Marcus, and London were becoming suspicious as to why we were always disappearing but since Zack and Cody were used to it, they were able to easily lie their way out of it. "I would have thought that you were his sister from your facial structure."_

_"Yeah, well, his mom and my mom were twins, and oddly enough his older sisters and I were born on the same day." Crystal replied shortly. "And the three of us look the same so that makes sense."_

_"Oh" I replied and fell silent._

_I wasn't sure what to say to her because I was afraid that she was mad at me for some reason. But I don't know why she would be mad, I hadn't met her before and I don't think I did anything to offend her. I asked Zack about it and he just shrugged and said that was the way that she is with new people, it hard for her to warm up to them. I asked Cody and he looked concerned saying that something was wrong. Then I asked Sydney and he just said that it was because she was away from her father and her adoptive brother and she was worried about them. So much that she had a tendency to alienate anyone until she was sure that the person was ok._

_"Do you know when Sydney's brothers and sisters are going to be back?" I asked, trying to change the subject._

_Crystal stopped and looked sharply at me. "Why so you can get an autograph?" she spat._

_"No," I took a step back, suddenly confused. "I was just thinking that Sydney would like to see them." I scratched my head. "I would have thought that you would like to see them as well."_

_Crystal's face softened ever so slightly. "I do," she replied with a short nod. "But for right now, it's a good thing that they're not here, as long as they aren't around Koto, then we'll be able to get some answers from him before something goes wrong and things generally tend to go wrong when they're around each other."_

_"But how is that-"_

_"I don't want to talk about it," Crystal interrupted as we turned the corner to walk to the room._

Crystal leapt over Noah and turned around, slamming into his side, sending him sprawling on to the ground as Bailey watched. She could see how she had the powers of a white tiger in her; she had a way of walking around, looking at Noah, as if she was stalking her prey. _'I don't know her well, but I'd trust her with my life.' _Bailey thought, slowly lowering her arms. She ignored Patrick's sigh of exasperation. _Even if she doesn't trust me.'_

And then there was when Bailey met Sydney. Even though he seemed really shy, he seemed to trust her almost as soon as he had seen her. Maybe he felt that he could trust her? She couldn't be so sure, and she couldn't ask him now. No one knew where he was. Well, Bailey was the only one that knew for sure, he was with Gattaca, working with him. They were going to have to fight against him now. She brought a hand up to her mouth and bit down on her thumb nail. She was almost sure that it wasn't going to go over well.

How could his family fight against him?

Could they do it if that meant having to potentially kill him to save the fate of both of the worlds: Earth and the Elemental world?

_"I thought I recognized you from somewhere," I commented after a second and smiled over at Sydney again. He looked at me curiously, waiting to see what I had figured out. "You're Spirit from the DarkElements."_

_"So you know my stage name." Sydney commented with a twitch at the corner of his mouth. Of course I knew it, he and his siblings were part of the band the DarkElements and I loved their music. They had a good mixture of all genres and I knew that not many people were able to pull that off. I looked over at Crystal and then noticed that she had the same facial features and facial structure as Sydney's older sisters. "Not many people do." He remarked before turning his attention to Zack. "We never were on tour." He explained, gathering attention from Tapeworm, Max, and Cody._

_Crystal just sat back on the couch that she was sitting on, waiting if she ever needed to speak. I don't know how she did it, but she had this way with her blue eyes to make it look like she was looking right through your soul. It freaked me out, but in a way it made me feel comfortable at the same time._

_"We used going on a tour as a cover," Sydney explained, sounding as if he was holding something back. He rubbed his forehead and gave a short sigh. "Um, we were being chased, even harder by WingzCorp," he explained. "We had no idea why, but they kept saying that they were chasing us for our own good and we couldn't understand why."_

_"The same thing happened when we were back in Boston." Tapeworm spoke up and Sydney listened patiently. "We would go visiting Ms. Martin and Mr. Martin and they would hold back for a while, Caos and Kuroko, but then eventually they wouldn't care and start attacking anyway. They said that their trying to capture us was for our own good too."_

_"That's interesting." Cody muttered as he rubbed his chin. "Go on." He instructed Sydney._

_"So after a while we realized that it would be better if we kept up the cover of going around on tour and we set up this elaborate thing that to our fans we gave them a bunch of stuff to lessen the fact that we really weren't going on tour." He gave a snort. "And we also explained that we were doing an experiment to see our ticket sales and stuff." He shrugged. "Some people were upset as they should be, but they understood."_

_"How old is he?" I asked, leaning closer to Max._

_"He's nine" she replied quickly, still looking at him._

'_Sydney had quickly shown me that people were different from just looking at them.' _Bailey thought as she continued to look around. _'I thought that he was just a regular 9 year old boy…but he's so much smarter and wiser than anyone else I've ever met. It must be hard to know almost anything about everything and have to adapt and help others with that power.' _Bailey thought to herself as she turned to Patrick.

"What?" Patrick asked in annoyance as he tapped his foot impatiently. "You know with all of these breaks that you're taking, I might as well just fight someone else." His face softened. "Your head is obviously not in the game here."

"Pat," Bailey spoke slowly, as to not offend him. "What are you going to do…if you have to fight Sydney?"

Patrick's eyebrows rose, as if he didn't even think about it before. Then he ran a hand through his hair, his face turning troubled. "Fight against him, I guess," he replied after a moment. "I guess we're kind of used to it, especially if Rhubes gets out of control or if some part of the darkness gets to Riles." He scratched the back of his head. "We never really had to deal with it with Syd before though." He looked at her curiously. "Is that what you've been thinking about this whole time?"

Bailey shook her head, sitting down on the ground and crossing her legs. Patrick made a gesture to Core, letting him know that they would only be a minute, and then walked over to Bailey, sitting down in front of her. He didn't say anything, he just allowed her to gather her thoughts.

That was helpful, she didn't feel rushed. Bailey looked around at the rest of the group, Riley, Rhuben, Julius, Maddie, Reihu…all of them…they were all working hard, and all she could think about was reflecting on their past year together and everything that had happened to her as well as her involvement with Geneva. Who knew that one day eating at a café would cause her to awaken to Geneva's powers?

_"It does concern me," I blurted out quickly. "I know it does. Lately, I've been having these…dreams, premonitions, I don't know. That something really, really, bad is going to happen." I shook my head. "From what I've seen, the ship gets really torn apart, a lot of innocent people are killed, and there's a voice."_

_"A voice?" Patrick repeated and made a grunting sound when Noah hit him on the back of the head. "Sorry."_

_"Yeah, a voice," I nodded. "I don't know if it's a guys or a girl's voice, but what I can tell you is that it sounds like it knows what it's talking about. The person keeps telling me that I'm meant to be helping you guys that I'm supposed to be put into this, that I'm supposed to help you guys."_

_"Wait a minute," Crystal spoke up suddenly. "Maybe, she's telling the truth." She thought for a second. "Maybe she's like Aaron."_

_"You mean that little blind kid that's always hanging around you guys?" Koto spoke up again. Crystal ignored him._

_"We all know that he's not an elemental, but he __does__ have some sort of power," Noah agreed with a nod. "Maybe the voice is telling Bailey that she had the same power."_

_"But we don't even really know that Aaron's power is." Patrick reminded him._

_"All the more reason that we have to find him to help figure this out." Noah continued._

_"Whatever," Koto took out a cigarette and lit it up, blowing smoke rings into the air. "You guys are always talking, never doing. That's what makes us so different," he tilted his head down again, looking serious, his green eyes flashing. "If you would actually believe me, you would know that what WingzCorp has been doing this whole time as been trying to help you."_

_"Explain" Rhuben commanded._

_"I can't disclose all the details-"_

_"When can you?" Crystal interrupted._

_"But like I was saying before, we know that Halo Syndicate is up to something, we don't know exactly, but there's a way that they're going to destroy everybody in the world. Humans and Elementals alike, only they will be the ones that survive and they're going to start their own 'elemental race' when they're done. What we know is that in a year and a half this is going to happen."_

_"You mean in 2012?" I asked, wrinkling my nose._

_"That's the idea, they-"_

_Koto let out a guttural scream as a green ball of energy flew over head and hit him in the chest, sending him off of his feet and across the patio of the restaurant that we were sitting in. Everybody that was around started to scream and run away as more balls of energy flew over head, obviously aiming towards us._

_"Get her out of here!" Rhuben commanded as she held out her hands and a large black ball of energy appeared and she threw it forward, towards a green ball of energy._

_The two collided in mid air and there was an explosion that knocked me off my feet and back onto the ground. I let out a cry of pain as my head connected with the cement in a sharp thwack. People who were still running by, screaming, started to run over me, with no worry if I was ok or not. I shielded my face and my chest the best I could and waited until they were all gone until I sat up and looked around again. Another ball of energy flew overhead, and I jumped out of the way, just in time or it would have definitely hit me. I sat up, brushing off my arms and legs._

_Koto was already back on his feet, teeth bared and growling loudly. I winced in pain; my whole body was aching, as I got back to my feet. Noah moved towards me, to get me out of there but I shook my head. I couldn't explain to him that I had to stay, but I didn't have to. Noah just looked at me and nodded before hurrying back over to his brother and sister. As I got to my feet, Patrick, Noah, Crystal, and Rhuben moved to stand beside him, looking around to see where the attacks were coming from._

_All of a sudden I felt arms around my waist and I let out a scream as I was lifted up into the air. Koto whirled around and immediately turned into a wolf, jumped on top of a table, onto the roof of the restaurant and leapt into the air, snarling as he latched onto the foot of the person that had grabbed onto me. I thrashed around, trying to get away, as Koto continued to hold on. I tilted my head back and immediately recognized the face of the guy that had attack the ship a couple of days ago. He smirked back down at me, his gray eyes flashing. Then he looked down at Koto with contempt._

_"Get off me you mangy mutt!" he cried and kicked Koto in the head._

_Koto let out a whining sound and fell back to the ground as the man halted in the air, hovering lightly. I gasped as I stared back down at the ground, if he dropped me now, I definitely would be killed._

_"Let go of Bailey!" Patrick cried as he and Noah flew up and hovered next to the guy, their wings flapping gently._

_I gasped. '__What animals are they? Those wings don't look like bird wings, not like Zack and Cody's. I've never seen them like that before__.'_

_"There's not use in trying to fight me," the man stated calmly. "You're just going to lose."_

_"Oh yeah?" Patrick brought his hands together and they glowed yellow and crackled with electricity. He then raised them over his head and thunderclouds started to form together. Lightning crackled and thunder rumbled from above him. "THUNDER CRASH!" He shouted as he moved his hands back down._

_A large bolt of lightning shot out of the sky towards the man and me and I closed my eyes, turning my head away, waiting to get hit, but was surprised when nothing happened. I looked up just in time to see the lightning bolt stop a few inches short of the man and shot away from him, hitting a tree below, causing it to burst into flames. Noah gaped at him, eyes wide. He brought his watch to his mouth._

_"Guys, we're going to need a little help here." He stated._

_"Where are you?" Riley's worried voice replied almost immediately._

_"Trust me, you'll find us." Noah replied._

_Rhuben and Crystal suddenly appeared in the air on the backs of Driver, the large white tiger, and a large black and silver lion. "What do you want?" Rhuben demanded, tightening her grip on her guardian. "Who are you?"_

_"Careful my mistress," Her guardian replied smoothly. "This guy, I can feel it, he's much stronger than anyone that we have ever faced before."_

_"Since you asked so nicely," the guy replied. "My name is Zhane," he smiled a little. "I'm part of Halo Syndicate and I'm trying to get you guys to stop trying to stop us." His smile grew wider. "No one can stop us, not even Core, the guy that used to run WingzCorp." He nodded at all of us. "Yes, we used to work with WingzCorp, but as the years went by, we realized that we were much stronger than them and we broke apart. We want to rule the world and we know that we'll be able to do so." He nodded towards the ground, where Koto, still in his wolf form, was walking in a large circle under us. "You should have listened to them; WingzCorp is really trying to help you."_

_"Why are you telling us this?" Noah demanded._

_"Because I'm going to kill you," Zhane replied. "Right here and right now." He tightened his grip on me. "Starting with this girl, she's not an elemental, but she has some sort of power and she's a nuisance. The best place to start is with her."_

_I let out a grunt as he tightened his grip, effectively cutting off air flow to my stomach. All of a sudden I felt shot of electricity shoot down my spine and I screamed in pain. It was agonizing; I couldn't believe that the others were able to deal with this day in and day out. It hurt so bad that tears started to stream down my cheeks and I screamed even louder._

_"Quick, attack him!" Crystal cried._

_"No, you might hit Bailey." Patrick shouted back, his eyes wide._

_"But we have to do something." Noah replied._

_All of a sudden, I felt peaceful and everything around me turned white. "__Bailey Pickett, don't be afraid." __It was the voice. "__You're tapping into the power that you have been holding for a long time. Use it wisely; use it to save yourself and your friends. I know that you're going to do a good job with it.__"_

_I opened my eyes and all of a sudden knew what to do. I focused all of the energy that I had in my body and released it. Zhane screamed in pain and let me go, but I didn't fall, I was hovering in the air. I turned around and watched as Zhane continued to scream in pain, his body steaming as sores appeared on his arms and legs._

_"Quick, do it now!" Dricer commanded._

_"CRYSTAL SMASH!" A large block of ice formed in between Crystal's hands and she threw it forward._

_"Darkness Atom Bomb!" A large ball of darkness energy formed around Rhuben and her guardian and she shot it forwards as well._

_"LIGHTNING STORM!" Patrick and Noah called in unison. A large gust of wind picked up and a ball of air moved in between Noah's hands, little bursts of energy inside. He threw it into the air and Patrick created another bolt of lightning and crashed it into the orb of air, causing a large orb of energy and he sent it towards Zhane as well._

_Zhane held out his hands and the attacks hit a force field that he put up, but he couldn't hold it for long and he was hit by all three attacks. He screamed again and used what was left of his energy to glare at us and to disappear in a flash of green light._

_Slowly, I lowered myself back to the ground as well as the others. Koto turned back to a human and stood to the side, looking apathetic._

_As soon as my feet touched the ground I felt all of my energy fade away and I crumpled to the ground on my hands and knees, breathing heavily._

_"How'd I do that?" I whispered my eyes wide in shock…_

Bailey licked her lips and started to explain. "I was just thinking about everything." She replied slowly. "How life was before I found out about the elementals, what's life going to be like after this war ends." She tugged at her shoelaces. "I've also been thinking about what happens if none of us gets through this? What if we die? What happens when the guardians go back to the elemental world?"

The questions were filling her head over and over again and she couldn't do anything but let them continue to come about. It was comforting; she had always been the kind of girl that had to ask questions. She was always so curious when she was young, and it continued on until now. But that curiosity was also a curse, she couldn't stop but think about what happened if they failed. What would happen to the elemental world? Would it cease to exist? Would Earth be completely run by darkness if Gattaca wins?

"Bailey," Patrick licked his lips. "I know that it may not seem like it, but things _are_ going to get better." He clasped his hands in his lap. "Everything happens for a reason, and you found out about the elementals and stuff for a reason." He nodded once. "You're really going to help us." His eyes narrowed slightly. "I think you need to rest for a bit, I've been kicking your butt all morning and you don't seem to be progressing." He grinned at her, to let her know that he was just joking. "I'll let Christian and Core know what's going on."

Bailey smiled gratefully in reply and got up from the ground, going back in to the house. She stopped in the bathroom and turned the water on. She watched it splash into the sink for a few moments before cupping her hands in the water and splashing it all over her face. She then grabbed onto a towel and dried off as she looked at her reflection. It slowly morphed into the image of Geneva, who looked at her with concern.

"What's wrong, Bailey?" she asked. "I can feel your doubts."

"You'd be doubtful too if you were just a regular human that stumbled upon everything." Bailey replied in monotone.

"Do you not remember when we first met, child?" Geneva asked. "When I told you that you were destined for this?"

_Suddenly there was a bright flash of light._

_Windows disintegrated all around us; the ground shook and heaved, and felt like it was going to split apart. Every piece of furniture or object that was not secured instantly went flying across the room, tossing my friends with them. Dishes, silverware, decorations, pictures, chairs, bookcases… they all tumbled onto their side and shattered._

_The last thing that I saw before everything went dark was a bookshelf falling towards me…_

…

_.._

_._

_Bailey woke with a start. All she saw first was nothing. It was all white. She quickly sat up and stared at her surroundings._

_Still nothing._

_"Where am I?" She mumbled._

_"Hello, Bailey Pickett." Someone behind her called in a calm voice._

_Bailey quickly turned around and came face to face with a tall, blond woman with piercing blue eyes and was wearing a long green and white dress with a shawl over her shoulders. For some reason, when Bailey saw her, she felt calm. At least, calmer than she had a second ago._

_"How do you know my name?" she whispered._

_The woman smiled. "I know a lot of things, Bailey."_

_In an instant the woman's appearance changed and she was now wearing a long gown with an orange flower design and a golden crown with a book on her palm. Warmth seemed to radiate from her. Bailey felt her mouth drop._

_The person merely smiled. "My name is Geneva, and I am here to tell you of your mission."_

_"What mission?" Bailey whispered. "I don't…I don't know what you're talking about._

_"Ah... but you do, Bailey." She smiled sadly. "You were brought into this; your mission was created when you first found out about Zack and Cody. The woman nodded. "I am a spirit from the elementals world sent here to help you. I have been using you as my medium"_

_"You're...you're the Shaman from the elemental world." Bailey suddenly realized and then smiled. "You must be so important with everything that my friends are going through." Geneva smiled and nodded. "Are you really…this young?"_

_"In the elemental world, you don't physically age after a certain age, depending on your species." Geneva explained patiently. "I don't physically age after the age of 25, but I am hundreds of years old." Her smile widened a little. "I don't know how much longer I'm going to be around, no one can really tell, but I'm still going to help you in any way that I can." She reached out a placed a hand on top of Bailey's head, causing her to feel warm. "Don't ever forget that you are important and can help the others."_

_"But they don't trust me."_

_"They __will__ trust you," Geneva stated patiently. "I know they will, give them time, they're stressed and haven't had much time to make friends, who isn't an elemental, that have found out their secret and want to genuinely help them. But you do and that's special."_

_"How are Zack and Cody?" Bailey suddenly cried, looking impatient. "Sydney? Tapeworm? Are they all ok? Are we all ok?"_

_"Bailey, everything is fine." Geneva's smile faded and a dark look crossed her features. "The war has started, and thing will change, but right now, everything is fine."_

_"I just want to go home, ok?" Bailey pouted._

_"But Bailey, you're still needed with your friends, and that's where I'm sending you right now. I'm sending you back; you just needed a little rest…"_

Bailey nodded as she looked back at the woman that was sitting in front of her. She reached out and lightly touched the mirror, her smile widening as Geneva reached out and lightly placed her hand on the other side. Even though Bailey had her hand resting on glass, she could feel the warmth and protection from Geneva radiating around her as their hands touched. It was that same felling that she got each and every time Geneva made her presence known to help Bailey whenever she was in trouble.

"Patrick is right, I came to your for a reason, you're going to help the elementals." Geneva said with a smile. "You're going to help save the world."

* * *

Zack cracked his knuckles, his hands between his knees, his feet bouncing on the ground. He couldn't stay still; he couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen before they even got a chance to rest. They had finished sparring earlier, and he wasn't sure if any of them were going to be ready, but it wasn't like they hadn't prepared for it. All of those small battles they fought against Zhane/Gattaca's henchmen, it just caused them to get stronger and stronger.

Plus, with the plan that he, Cody, and Bailey had come up with, there was no way that they could lose. But it wasn't like he didn't have his doubts. Like Bailey, he constantly wondered what would happen if they all lost hope or the will to fight. What would happen to both worlds? But he didn't allow himself to think about it for long, it would just cause his feeling of depression to come back and that was the last thing that he wanted.

"Zack!"

Zack stood up, his new clothes moving with him as he did so, and he hurried to follow his brother's voice. He ran down the staircase and stopped in the living room, spotting everyone standing there, all grim expressions on their faces. Cody was standing by the front door, which was wide open. Zack walked over to Cody and looked out at the sky.

The sky was a dark black-purple, a very unnatural color. Bright bolts of purple lightning were flashing everywhere. He knew that it only meant one thing. It was time for them to get going. He turned back to Christian and Core and they nodded in reply. He then looked at each one of his friends in the face, he could see that they were all worried, not sure what was going to happen. They were just as scared as he was, although he was going to try their hardest not to let it show.

Zack looked at the sky once more. He pictured all of the people's lives that had been affected because of this. His mother, his father, Max, Koto, Wingz Corp in general, and all of those people that had been murdered for no reason. All of those innocent people that were driven from their homes. The cities that were destroyed. The lives that could never be brought back. Well, they were all going to be avenged now.

It was finally going to end.

"You guys ready?" Zack asked, turning to look back at his friends.

They all nodded in reply. He turned and reached out, grabbing onto Cody's hand. "Are you ready?"

Cody smiled over at his brother, his eyes showing determination as well as a tinge of fear. But he was sure that no matter how determined, arrogant, or self-assured everyone else was, they were also scared. No one knew what lied ahead for them, no one knew if this battle was going to be their last one. As long as they were together, even if some of them were going to fall, they knew that it was going to be worth it.

"Yeah," Cody squeezed Zack's hand back. "Ready." He blinked. "Oh, one thing though." Zack turned and looked at him, his eyebrows raised. "Happy Birthday."

* * *

**A/N: **Well, it's a litte bit under 10,000 words, but its close enough. So I thought I would be a cornball and go back and re-show how everything started with this story (much like they do in animes when they're about to start a final battle or whatever). Plus, I thought it would be helpful if someone forgot how something happened, or why something is the way it is. And I thought that it would help progress the chapter as well as Bailey's characterization as well.

Yes, I left you guys on a cliffhanger when the final battle starts. I hope that I made you guys anticipate it though. I hope I answered all the questions that were asked (the prophecy will be completely revealed in the next chapter though). I'm sure I missed one or two, so I hope that I can answer them in the next one.

Cheers,

-Riles


	65. It's over, finally

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

* * *

Zack took a deep breath and extended his arm, allowing Blazen to appear on its perch. He spread his wings majestically and then grew to his full form, allowing Zack to climb onto his back. Blazen spread his wings and he took off into the air. He turned around and Zack waited as Cody and Phantom flew up to their side. They waited as their friends followed behind them, hovering in the air, waiting for Zack to say something

Zack sighed as he looked around at each friend in his group. He didn't think that there was going to be a chance that he would potentially not see those same faces ever again. He didn't think that their big battle against their toughest enemy was every going to come. When they first started out, he was sure that WingzCorp was the one that they were supposed to be fighting against, but ever since they found out the truth, everything had changed. And as with growing up, changes continue to come and there was nothing that you could do to stop it.

"I don't know what's going to happen out there today, guys," he said finally, pausing as another crack of lightning flashed. He licked his lips and continued. "But what I do know is," he nodded over at Cody, who looked like he was trying his hardest to hold back tears. Zack stopped once more, his eyes pricking with heat as they started to well up with tears of their own. He took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice steady.

The realization suddenly hit him.

He could die. His friends could die. All of them could die, it had been a possibility since they started, and they weren't going to stop until they ended it.

"What I do know is," he repeated, putting as much force into his voice as he could. "Is that I couldn't have done any of this without you guys." He reached up and placed a hand on his heart, the rapid thudding of his ribcage gave him a sense of comfort. "But you're not just doing it for me and Cody and because of the prophecy, you're doing this for Max and Koto, and for all of the innocent people that have fallen for us," he raised his eyes to his friends, who silently nodded at his words. "You're doing this for Cored and Christian, who lost their best friends, you're doing this for your friends who lost some of their family, you're doing this for the lives that have been altered, you doing this for the elementals."

He fell silent.

Cody then took over.

"You're doing this to save the world. Our world and the elemental world. Keep fighting with whatever you've got, don't give up until you've used every last ounce of your energy." He turned and looked at Zack.

Zack looked right back at him. He could tell what his younger brother was thinking, he could see it in his eyes. Was this going to be the moment that separated them forever? They always joked around, saying that college was going to take Cody away while Zack would probably be in jail, but that's all that it was, jokes. They knew that nothing in the world was going to split them apart no matter how hard it tried.

But would this succeed?

Zack shook his head.

No.

He wasn't going to let that happen.

Cody nodded and leaned forward on Phantom's back, raising his voice. "Alright, you all know the plan, knock out his henchmen before going after Gattaca, if you can, try and make it that Gattaca releases his hold on Zhane, so we can keep him safe." He called loudly. "Everyone got it?" He waited for the nods in response. "Ok, let's go!"

Bailey instinctively tightened her grip around Patrick's waist as he nudged ThunderTatsu, telling him to get going after Blazen and Phantom. She took in a deep breath and tired to concentrate on the battle ahead of them, but she was downright scared. Probably more scared than anything, she had a crucial part to the plan that would make or break the fate of their worlds…She wasn't sure she could handle that much pressure.

_But I have to, to help my friends. _Bailey shook her head, pulling her hair behind her ears, letting out a deep breath, forcing her anxiety away. She put on a brave face. _I have to stay strong for them._

The group of friends followed the path of lightning towards their enemy. He stood in the middle of a field, his arms crossed over his chest, a relaxed smile on his face. Beside him, Leslie, Ashley and Sydney were waiting, grim expressions on their faces, but they were all waiting attentively. Zhane tilted his head back and smiled as his opponents slowly drifted down and landed on the ground, allowing their guardians to go back into their bodies.

"Ah, finally you've made it," Zhane sighed as he placed his hands on his hips. "I was starting to think that you had given up, realizing that you can't win." He pointed up above him. The clouds above him had parted and they could see a dark orange light slowly moving towards the ground. "As you can see, the elemental world is collapsing, and once it does, I'll be able to rule over it all."

"Not with Geneva being there to stop you," Bailey spoke up, bringing Zhane's attention over to her. She continued, her confidence soaring. "We know all about your true self, Gattaca, and we're not going to let you get away with covering the elemental world and earth in darkness."

Zhane tilted his head back and laughed. "You think you actually have the power to beat me? You've hardly laid a scratch on my work force," he motioned to Sydney, Ashley, and Leslie. "And you think that you can beat me." His eyes narrowed. "That's not going to happen; I'm going to take over this world and the elemental world like I was rightfully supposed to. These worlds are mine!"

Cody gave the signal and he, Zack, and Bailey watched as their friends went rushing into the battle against Ashley, Leslie, and Sydney. It was all part of Bailey's plan, if Zack and Cody were the strongest, use them as a last resort. That way, they could observe Zhane and see how he fights so they could get the upper hand.

Zhane seemed to have the same idea as he stood back away from his henchmen.

_I just hope this works. _Bailey thought to herself, biting her lower lip in worry. _I know you can do it, guys._

* * *

Electricity crackled in the dry air as it was ripped to shreds by lightning that flashed around them. Thunder crashed overhead. It mixed in with everyone's nerves perfectly. But they had a good reason to be nervous. They'd made a deal with the devil, and only one of them was going to get out alive tonight.

Riley glanced over as Patrick and Noah went to take on Sydney. Anger flowed through her veins, boiling her skin to a deep red hue. She fought to control her heavy breathing flared by her temper. Her gaze then moved over to Zhane and she tried to relax, but in a state of pain and torment, all she could do was think of killing him.

Killing the man who destroyed everything that she had known to be true.

"Don't forget," Rhuben said from DeathLiger's back as they continued towards Leslie, whose green wings were already out from her back in preparation. "Continue to circle around and attack her until she's done. Don't give her a chance to break formation."

"Got it!" Crystal agreed. "Dricer!"

The white tiger guardian snarled loudly before taking off up into the air, DeathLiger and DalFang following close behind him. The three girls circled around Leslie a few times before Dricer took the first round of attacking.

"That is what our lives have become." Leslie said as she watched the three of them circle around her. Revolving around the battle just as any athlete or soldier." She let out a weary sigh. "We exist to fight."

"And if we don't want to fight? What are we then?" Riley asked, her eyes narrowing.

Leslie shrugged carelessly. "Hard to say." She mused, rubbing her chin like an elderly man. "I suppose we cease to exist."

Rhuben laughed loudly, scornfully. "You've got to be kidding!" She shook her head, her eyes flashing. "We won't just not exist!"

Leslie, though, was not laughing. She spoke softly, staring straight ahead. "Then what will we be?"

"Human beings. Men. Women." Crystal replied. "Teenagers. Friends. Brothers. Sisters. Cousins. Nieces. Nephews. _People._"

"Did you call yourself these things before this whole thing began?"

"Yes," Crystal said finally. "I was… me. Just me. I was normal." She nudged Dricer in the sides.

The beast's ears perked up and turned in Leslie's direction. His green eyes glittered like jewels in the night, as it locked onto its target. With a snarl, Dricer shot towards Leslie, moving quickly with the aid of his wings, getting to Leslie before she could move. He crashed into her and they both went down in a tumble of cries of anger and shock. Dricer shot forward and fastened his teeth into Leslie's arm, causing the girl to scream in pain as blood spurted out over her arm. She reached out her free hand and shot a blast of green energy into Dricer's side at point-blank range. Dricer roared and let go of Leslie as Crystal screamed in pain, feeling what Dricer was feeling.

She moved her hand to her side, giving Leslie the chance to kick her in the side, knocking her off of Dricer and sending her plummeting towards the ground. Dricer dove after her and it was DeathLiger and Rhuben's turn.

"Dark Darts!" Rhuben sent the barrage of darkness energy into Leslie's back, trying to break off her wings. The wings stayed intact, but she blasted small holes into Leslie's back, causing spurts of blood to fly out with each it.

Leslie turned and fired a beam of energy at Rhuben, which DeathLiger swung to avoid, quickly turning back to her. "Fear Fang!" He bit down in the air, the energy slamming Leslie in the stomach. "Burning Mane!" His mane shot out black fire and it hit Leslie once more.

Leslie spun in a quick circle, gaining some space to recuperate.

"Does this chick ever _die?_" Rhuben growled, her hands tightening on DeathLiger's mane.

"Don't underestimate her yet." Riley barely got the words out of her mouth before DeathLiger let out a roar, getting hit in the side by a blast of energy. His beautiful teddy-bear face was marred by dirt, his dark skin was ripped open, the side of his body, and in extension the side of Rhuben's body, was a mass of torn and bleeding flesh. The blood is a royal red, a fitting shroud for a magnificent beast.

Riley growled low in her throat, wincing as DalFang was then hit in the leg, and the back, sending the two of them to the ground as well. Limping, her right leg from her knee up to her side was a torn and bloody mess. She stood across from Leslie, a challenging look on her face. Leslie looked uncharacteristically pale, as if everything had already taken a lot out of her.

_Zhane must be working them harder than we thought. _Riley thought as a agreement silently moved between the two of them.

Both Leslie and Riley took a step back and went into fighting stances. Riley raised her fists to her face, like a boxer. Leslie took on a different stance, with her fists wide apart at chest height. The two moved in and it was on. Riley threw the first punch, aimed at Leslie's head. She quickly ducked under it and laid in a quick jab to Riley's stomach. Riley paused momentarily from the blow, but regained composure instantly. Leslie threw out a straight punch with her right to Riley, but the raven haired girl moved her head to the side and grabbed Leslie's arm. She then twisted Leslie's arm behind her and pushed her forward. As soon as Leslie turned back around, Riley planted a hard kick right into her stomach. Leslie cried out in pain and fell to the ground. Riley did not give her any time to rest though, as she went on the ground on top of Leslie and threw her fists in her face repeatedly. After getting a couple of blows in, Leslie pushed Riley off of her, and both of them got to their feet.

DalFang, being better off of the guardians, stalked around Leslie, his lips pulled back in a snarl, blocking off Leslie's exit. His growl turned into a whimper as his leg buckled underneath him, his three other legs the only thing keeping him up.

Riley, Rhuben, and Crystal stood next to each other as their hands started to glow in their respective colors, glowing brighter, signaling that they were going to be using a lot of their power.

Almost in unison, the three savagely attacked Leslie, their barrage like bursts of gunfire. Though fighting in desperation, Leslie quickly fell victim to the attack against her. Her screams of rage and of pain subsided until there were nothing left and she fell back to the ground, her green wings disappearing for the final time. The trio of combatants looked at each other, weary from the battle and none favoring the prospect of more fighting that night.

Without a word, they collapsed to the ground from their injuries.

* * *

"Oh no," Zack gasped as he watched his friends fall to the ground, instinctively moving forward to help them.

"Stop," Cody and Bailey both grabbed onto his arms. "Zack, you can't go out there! Not yet!" Bailey reminded him sharply.

"I can't just sit there and watch them get hurt," Zack replied with a pleading tone. His heart hurt, he couldn't stand to sit there and do nothing, especially since they were doing all of that to help him and his brother. He could feel the fire burning in his stomach, pushing him to rip his arms out of their grasp and continue forward.

"I know it's hard, Zack," Cody murmured in his brother's ear. "But we have to wait until we're sure that Zhane is our main focus." He swallowed thickly, his voice shaking on his neck words. "No matter what."

* * *

To start the fight, Reihu slashed Ashley in half, only to find out that it was an illusion. The real Ashley popped up from behind him and sent a roundhouse kick the back of his head. Reihu does a flip to dodge it and brought his leg down solidly on Ashley' s shoulder effectively stunning her; then kicked her stomach.

Clutching her midsection, Ashley jumped backward and summoned some more copies. She and her copies jumped up into the air and sent beams of energy down towards him. Tapeworm leapt over Reihu's head and placed a hand on the ground. When he pulled his hand up, a pillar of the ground moved up and blocked them from her attacks.

"Thanks," Reihu breathed.

"Don't mention it." Tapeworm replied.

Ashley, holding up her right hand, caused the bullets of energy to stop in midair; then using the same hand, she made a 'come hither' gesture and the energy began to glow and disintegrate into tiny lights that flew to her hand forming a sword.

"Shit!" Reihu hissed before his lion parts appeared on his body.

Ashley held the sword with two hands and sliced the air, sending a great wave of energy that penetrated Tapeworm's makeshift shield. Tapeworm and Reihu brought up her arms to shield their torso and face receiving gashes on their legs. Ashley took the chance to rush forward; she grabbed Reihu by the throat, choking him in her tight grip, lifting him off the ground. With her other hand, she conjured a large ball of energy and slammed it into Tapeworm's chest, sending him flying back. She then threw Reihu to the ground like a rag doll, creating a crater around him in the ground, her copies moving back into her body.

As Reihu and Tapeworm got back to their feet, Ashley brought up her right hand to cover the wound in her stomach, covering up the bruise that Reihu had given her. As she waits Ashley doesn't notice the vines that are coming off of the ground, wrapping themselves tightly around her legs.

Ashley shifted her legs slightly, only to find that she couldn't move. She looked down, seeing the dark veins holding her in place. Ashley's only warning from an incoming attack is when the air charged with energy before a large explosive burst of power erupted where she was standing. The cloud of dust caused the darkness to take hold again steadily encompassing Ashley's body. "Your move" Reihu said from the darkened mist.

Ashley looked at the dark cloud swallowing her body, and then she smiled saying, "I have underestimated you. My sincerest apologies." she said bowing a little. "However", she whispered from Reihu's left side- at the same time 'Ashley's body starts to disappeared from within her bindings. This was followed by a burst of light that lit up everything and once again banished the darkness that was hiding Reihu's form. Before Reihu could respond Ashley had brought her dagger to rest in the cavity between Reihu's throat and chest. "Just because you seem to have the upper hand, it doesn't mean you can defeat me so easily." Ashley unleashes another set of projectiles in every direction as she simultaneously finishes her sentence.

She smirked into Reihu's face as his hands moved up to his chest sluggishly. Her smirk then slackened as she dropped Reihu from her grasp. Her eyes widened with surprise as she looked down to see a branch sticking out of the middle of her chest. She turned her head and looked at Tapeworm as he stared back at her, breathing heavily from the effort, hardly able to stay up on his own two feet.

He buckled to his knees as he dropped his arm to the side, the branch moving from Ashley's chest. But the damage was done. She fell onto her stomach, her hands framing her face, as the life left her eyes.

"Nice job," Reihu rasped his hand still on his chest.

"Are you ok?" Tapeworm asked him.

"Yeah," Reihu removed his hand. "A flesh wound at best, nothing life threatening." He tried to get to his feel, but fell once more. "But I can't move without opening my wound even more."

"It's alright," Tapeworm briefly closed his eyes. "It's up to Zack and Cody, now."

* * *

"Come on," Zack climbed onto Blazen's back as Cody and Bailey got onto Phantom. They all took off up into the air and flew towards Zhane, who continued to stand where he was, seemingly not bothered by Ashley's and Leslie's demise.

It was as if he didn't notice them at all. He had kept his eyes on Zack and Cody, and when he saw them getting closer and closer, he finally moved. Zhane uncrossed his arms from his chest and waved and arm. Blazen and Phantom were hit in the chest with an invisible energy, sending them flying back.

Cody held onto Phantom and Bailey as tightly as he could, making sure he didn't get separated from the two of them. He glanced at Blazen and Zack, glad to see that they were ok. They tried again, having to doge each blast Zhane sent their way, to try and get as close as possible to him. But he still kept them at a proverbial arm's length away from them. "Dammit!"

Bailey gasped, not having ever heard him curse before. She then frowned as she looked down at Zhane, her determination. "Keep trying!" She ordered.

Zack and Cody exchanged glances and directed their guardians to try again. This time, Blazen thought about attacking first. "Fire Ball!" Blazen opened his mouth wide and shot a large fire ball towards Zhane. As Zhane moved to block the attack, Phantom followed up with a ball made up of hard water, getting them closer than ever.

Bailey closed her eyes. "C'mon Geneva, I need your help." She focused on the time that she had attacked Zhane the first time. How she was able to hurt him then. She felt peaceful and opened her eyes, seeing her hands glowing white. Bailey extended her hands and let out a cry out of exertions as she used her power on Zhane.

He cried out in pain as it shot through one of his arms, peeling back some of the skin on it.

"Way to go, Bailey!" Zack declared with a grin.

"It's not over yet," Cody warned him.

Zhane growled, starting to radiate with a black-purple light. He slowly started to levitate off of the ground, the air crackling around him, the electricity shooting down even faster from the black sky around them. The feeling of danger continued to rise even faster than before. They had underestimated Zhane, as he was always hiding behind his henchmen, they couldn't see what kind of power he had. Now they were seeing it firsthand.

He shot a green orb of energy at them, and they barely dodged out of the way. When it hit the ground, the ground erupted in a smooth crater, as if it was a scoop that had been taken out of ice cream. Cody gulped loudly and Bailey could feel him starting to shake under her arms.

_He's scared. _Bailey realized. _I thought only the rest of us were scared._

"I don't know if I can do this," Cody said suddenly.

"What?" Zack asked, whipping his head to look at him, sharply.

"I don't know if I can do this." Cody repeated. "I don't know if we can beat him, he's clearly much stronger than we are. Much stronger than everything we've ever faced before." He shook his head.

"Don't say that, Cody." Bailey said tightening her grip around his waist. "You can do this."

"Did you _not_ see what he just did?" Cody demanded, pointing to the crater. "He did that before, with civilians, when he destroyed Boston. He did it without even thinking. He can probably do it to our friends without thinking about it. He can do it to us."

"Cody," Zack flew closer to his brother. "Think about what we're fighting for. Our friends, our family, everyone in the elemental world." He looked up at the sky and noticed the orange glow had come even closer than before. If he had flown up higher with Blazen, he could have touched it. The collapse was happening faster and faster. "We can't let this happen to both of our worlds, Codes. And I can't do this alone, I need you. You're the one that told me why we're doing this. Remember? When I had my doubts back at the hotel?"

_"Zack, what are you doing?" Zack lifted his head and looked up at Cody, who entered their former suite tentatively. Cody gently closed the door behind him and Phantom appeared at his side before flying over and landing on the back of the couch, next to Blazen. "I've been looking all over for you; we're going to the park so we can get some sparring in." He explained as he walked closer to his brother. "We think that with everything that we found out recently, Zhane is probably going to try and attack us and we need to be ready, plus Bailey needs to-"_

_"For __once __can you __please__ not talk about Bailey?" Zack asked in a harsh whisper. "It's getting pretty annoying, and honestly, I liked it better when you were dating Rhuben and Crystal, so if there's any way you can go back to one of them, that'd be great."_

_"What's your problem?" Cody made a face as he crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at his brother. He then squeezed his eyes shut as he thought for a moment. "And, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't __you__ the one that has been chasing after Riley all these years?"_

_"Yeah, but at least I knew when to back off and date someone else before I tried again instead of acting like some sort of freak that can't even realize that she doesn't even belong in our group and that you have an ex-girlfriend that still has feelings for you." Zack replied, his eyes flashing._

_"What?" Cody let out an incredulous laugh and then his face softened before he moved over to stand next to his twin. "Where's this coming from?"_

_"My anger towards mom and ad apparently," Zack replied after a moment of silence. "I found what mom and ad were looking for before they left very, __very__ fast." He reached underneath the couch and pulled out two picture frames. "Pictures of us." He handed them over to Cody, who took them, his mouth and eyes wide open. Zack got to his feet and started to pace back and forth. "This is fucking ridiculous, we try to keep them here and try to explain __everything__ that's going on, but all they wanted to do was get away from us because we're __freaks__!" He waved his hands over his head. "And __now__ I find that they were looking for pictures of us? HOW MESSED UP IS THIS?"_

_"Zack, calm down," Cody said after a minute of stunned silence. He took a deep breath. "I know that all of this is hard and-"_

_"You can't __possibly __tell me that you're not pissed off by all this." Zack stated sharply._

_"Well, I mean, I guess Mom and Dad __could __have-"_

_"No," Zack interrupted. "I mean, with all of this. All of the elemental stuff, not being able to be normal, having to drag our friends into it, having our family threatened, having to worry about people dying day after day after day!" He was starting to get emotional. "You can't tell me that none of this stuff is getting to you." He looked skeptical. "Or are you just better at hiding it?"_

_"Having to be the __mature __one…" Cody took the cheap shot at his brother, but then his smile faded quickly. "Zack, you can't tell me that you think that none of this is bothering me. Do you think that I __wanted__ to fall for Bailey? Not when all of this was happening, I didn't want her anywhere near this, but it happened. And our friends are stuck in this, that happened, and we all have to think about other people and their lives and trying to keep them from trouble." He continued as Zack let out a deep breath through his nose. "I know that you're the one that's feeling the most…__passionate__ about this because you're the unofficial leader of all of us, but we still deal with the same things that you are, but we try not to dwell on things that we can't change."_

_"No, we can change this," Zack stated heatedly. "As soon as we get rid of the freak."_

_"There's always going to be someone or something that's going to try and get rid of us," Cody pointed out, trying to stay as calm as possible. "And being mad about everything isn't going to help. I want this to end as much as you do, and that's not going to happen until we take more action instead of feeling sorry for ourselves."_

_"I know," Zack admitted after a minute. "Trust me, I know, I just want all of this to be over."_

_"And it will be, Zack," Blazen said as he flew over to Zack and landed on his shoulder. "You know me and you know Phantom and you know that everyone will try to take care of you and try to make sure that everyone in your life is safe." He nuzzled his face against Zack's cheek. "We're here because we're trying to help you fix everything. Don't forget that it's our world too and we're just trying to get it back to the way it was."_

_"That's right," Phantom agreed. "Our world is the one that's falling apart as well as yours, and we want this to end as much as you do." He exchanged looks with Blazen, his wing-tips fluttering slightly. "No matter how it will end, we just want everyone to be happy."_

Cody slowly nodded.

"And we're not going to be able to do that if you keep acting like this." Zack reached out and grabbed Cody's hand. "You got me through my doubts; I'm going to get you through yours. I love you, bro, and I'm not going let it end like this."

"I love you, too." Cody agreed, squeezing Zack's hand back.

"LOOK OUT!"

Zack, Cody, and Bailey looked back towards Zhane and froze when they saw that he had sent an even larger barrage of green bolts of energy towards them. They weren't going to have enough time to move out of the way. Zack tightened his grip on Cody's even harder. At the last second, Blazen and Phantom were knocked out of the way by Riley and DalFang and Crystal and Dricer. But the force of their nudge, as well as the unexpectedness of it all knocked Blazen and Phantom to the ground, dumping the three teenagers off of their back.

While Crystal managed to dodge the energy bolts, the force of it still managed to bring the two of them to the ground. But DalFang suffered a direct hit, sending him and Riley to the ground so fast that they created a mini crater underneath them.

"Crys," Cody hurried over to his friend, placing a hand on her arm. "Crys, are you ok?"

"Never better," Crystal groaned, raising a hand to her head. She felt blood and winced, closing her eyes a little bit. "Actually, I probably have been better."

"You didn't have to do that," Cody said, gently wiping the blood from her face.

"Yes, I did," Crystal frowned, her eyes still closed. "You have a prophecy to fulfill and a world to save, I wasn't just thinking about you." She grabbed onto his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. "Kick that guys ass for me, would ya?"

Cody grinned, laughing a little bit despite the situation. "No problem."

"Good," Crystal gave a small smile. "Because he's getting on my last nerve."

Zack had reached Riley's side and gently put her head in his laps, cradling her face, pushing her hair away from it as he looked down at her. Riley's eyes flew open and she slightly glared at him. "You don't have to get so close you know," she said in a mumble.

"Well that just proves to me that you're ok," Zack replied with a quiet chuckle as he leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers. "I'm guessing this is why you never wanted to say anything." He said after a moment. "Because you didn't want something like this to happen."

"Now you're thinking straight." Riley cracked once more. "Don't worry about it; it was going to happen to you guys if we didn't do anything. It would have happened to anyone." She grimaced. "It doesn't hurt that bad, I'm fine."

"Liar," Zack sighed heavily, keeping his eyes closed for a few more moments before kissing her forehead, gently getting up. "I'm going to kill this bastard, so everyone can finally live in peace. We won't have to be in fear anymore."

"I got her," Rhuben limped over and grabbed onto her sister, gently grabbing onto her and rolling her into her arms. She looked up at Zack and gave him a sharp nod. "You go do what you need to do; the rest of us will be fine." She reached out a closed fist and Zack smiled and gave her a fist bump before turning and hurrying over to Cody and Bailey.

"Finally you get here," Sydney said as his dark blue eyes rolled in its sockets ash his brothers approached him. He looked at his nails. "It took you long enough, but you were never one to be on time." He added.

"Why would I miss any chance to help you, Sydney?" Patrick asked as calmly as possible, although his hands tightened on his spear so much that the knuckles turned white. "To change you back?"

"Besides, is that any way to treat your older brother?" Noah added smoothly.

Sydney glared before he rushed towards his brothers with such blinding speed that he left a dust trail in his path. He then summoned his staff attempting to hit his brothers with it, but they disappeared in a flash, appearing behind him.

Sydney smirked and summoned his power at the top of his staff. He sent it forward and the energy hit Zack and Cody at the same time that Zhane shot his green bolts of energy towards them, blasting them away from Zhane and back onto the ground.

"NO!" Bailey screamed so loud her throat burned.

She whipped around as she watched them hit the ground. She scanned the area around her; there was no one there to help her now. The others were too badly injured to pull themselves off of the ground. She turned back to Sydney and took a step back for each step that he took towards her, a menacing look on his face. He raised his staff and pointed it at Bailey, the tip starting to glow as it harnessed even more power.

Bailey moved her hands up to her face, to shield herself, a tear slipping down her cheek. _I can't believe it's going to end like this._

"Time to end our game, Sydney,"

At the last second, Sydney turned his staff around and launched his attack into Zhane, sending him back a few feet. Bailey gaped as Sydney lowered his staff and turned back to them, his eyes back to its normal light blue color.

"Patrick, Noah, now!" He declared, holding his staff high into the air.

"Luminescence!" The three called in unison as Patrick held his spear up and Noah held up his hammer. Thunder, wind and spiritual powers formed a big sphere of light, surrounded by ferocious winds, which shot white thunders at all directions. The combined power shot up into the sky, creating a massive ball of energy. It turned and shot back down to the ground, hitting Zack and Cody. The three brothers collapsed to the ground, emptied of all of their energy.

"Bailey," Sydney turned to the girl, who watched in bewilderment. "Give Geneva's power to Zack and Cody." He instructed. Bailey continued to gape at him. "I don't have time to explain, just give them your power!"

Bailey nodded and got to her feet, closing her eyes as she focused on the power that was in her. "I need your help Geneva…and I may not see you again," she murmured to herself, feeling Geneva's presence take her over. "I need you to help my friends, please give your power to Zack and Cody." Bailey opened her eyes when she suddenly felt all of the power drain from her. She felt her knees buckle and started to fall to the ground, but Geneva reached out and steadied her, holding her like a mother would hold a child. Bailey smiled up at Geneva, placing her hands on top of the older woman's. "Thanks for all of your help, Geneva." She whispered.

"No," Geneva replied with a warm smile. "Thank _you_, thank you for helping me restore my brother." She slowly let go of Bailey's arms, allowing her to slowly fall to her knees. "I'll never forget you. She turned and floated over to Zack and Cody, mixing in with the power that Patrick, Noah, and Sydney had give them.

"What's going on?" Tapeworm murmured, still lying on his stomach on the ground.

"I think…" Reihu spoke slowly. "I think they're combing their power together."

"They're giving Zack and Cody more power," Riley realized, a grin slowly spreading across her face.

"And a new weapon." Rhuben added.

As the light around Zack and Cody began to fade, Zhane took a step back, a flicker of fear flashing across his face. He let out a scream of rage and shot a barrage of purple lighting towards Geneva. Right when they were about to hit her, they deflected to the sides, smashing in to the ground. Geneva turned and smiled at Bailey once more, before disappearing up into the sky.

"This battle is over, Gattaca," Zack grinned as the light faded, Blazen appearing at his side. "Blazen, are you ready?"

"Ready." Blazen replied with a firm nod.

"_Phoenix Form!" _Zack called. Blazen brightened to a crimson red as he grew bigger, more power filling him than ever before. "Time to end this!"

"I'm ready whenever you are." Blazen replied confidently.

"A real duel of elements, and on both sides, two of the most powerful Elementals on Earth. This shall be interesting." Zhane said quietly, Gattaca's voice coming out of his mouth. His fingers twitched at his sides as he surveyed the battle field. Only Zack and Cody were left to fight against him, it could either go very well, or very badly. "I hope you're ready then!" Zhane said channeling all his energy in his palms.

"Here we go!" Zack yelled.

"Show me what you've got!" Zhane shot back.

Zack shot an immense amount of flaming energy towards him. Blazen flew up into the air, bursting into flames like a phoenix, and swung his arms down, sending a shower of fireballs down towards Zhane as well. The two attacks collided into one and continued towards Zhane.

Zhane stretched his arms forward and released some energy back at the fire ball as it neared towards him. The two attacks collided and dissipated in a second. Zack frowned and tired again, but the same thing happened two more times, causing his frustration to increase with each passing second. But on one barrage of attacks, it caught Zhane off guard and hit him right in the chest.

Zhane let out a guttural scream as he started to glow a dark purple that melted into black. His screams died away as he fell lifelessly to the ground. In his place was Gattaca, looking much like his sister in tunic type clothing that billowed behind him with his power. But instead of his clothes being white, they were black, almost as sinister as the snarl on Gattaca's face.

"So we finally see his true form." Cody murmured, clenching his hands into fists. "Phantom!" Cody summoned his guardian, who took the form of a giant bird with a blue aura around him. "_Leviathan Form!_"

"This is exciting!" Zhane said his dark aura surrounding his body now, stretching one arm only towards Cody.

"_Tsunami!_" Cody cried. The ground beneath them cracked open and a large tidal wave surfaced, rushing towards Gattaca. Phantom tilted his wings and circled around the wave multiple times, turning it into a water spout. But like Zack's attacks, Gattaca destroyed the attack. "This isn't working." Cody said, breathing heavily from the force of the frequent attacks. "I don't know what else to do."

Zack looked back at him, breathing just as hard as his brother. He knew what his brother was saying, but he refused to believe that there was nothing they could do. _But Cody is right; everything we're trying isn't working. I don't know if Geneva helped at all._

"Zack!"

"Cody!"

The twin boys heard Riley, Rhuben, Crystal, and Tapeworm's voices call to them. They turned and saw all of their friends, up on their feet, leaning against each other for support. "Don't give up yet," Tapeworm called. "We know that you can do this."

"We're behind you 100 percent," Riley added with a nod. "You guys are destined to do this."

"We wouldn't be here without you guys," Crystal said.

"And you're not going to get rid of us that easily." Rhuben concluded.

Zack and Cody looked back over at Zhane as Blazen let out a cry of pain, being hit in the side with one of Gattaca's attacks. Zack's heart hurt when he saw Blazen's flapping of his wings start to slow down, accompanying that pain that he felt in his arm, from having such a close bond to his guardian.

"Blazen. What're you doing?" Zack called to the Phoenix form of his guardian.

"I'm not afraid to die to protect my master and my friends," Blazen replied calmly as he landed on the ground next to Zack, looking him right in the eye."

Zack slowly smiled before he threw his arms around Blazen's neck, giving his friend a hug. "I'm not either! It's you and me Blazen; together we can beat this guy."

"Aren't you scared?" Cody asked without looking at his brother, watching Phantom intently.

"Of course I'm scared," Zack replied with a nod as he took a step back and briefly glanced at his twin before looking back at his guarding. "But the need of wanting to free all of us from this…is making me fearless."

Zack's body emitted a red aura along with Blazen's. A peaceful look came across his face as he floated into the air, next to Blazen. Suddenly they were wrapped in flames. From the ground, Riley, Rhuben, Patrick, Noah, Sydney, Crystal, Reihu, Tapeworm, and Cody watched in awe. Although the roar of the flames surround them, they could still hear Blazen and Zack talking.

"We will become one…" Blazen muttered. "In the heart of the flames…"

"To protect my friends," Zack muttered. "I need courage."

"We will become one," Blazen and Zack muttered in unison as they glowed brighter. Zack let out a scream as the flames got higher and started to wrap around them until it formed a fire ball around them.

"FUSION FORM!" They called out in unison.

"Fusion Form," Sydney repeated with a grin.

There was a loud explosion as the flames shot everywhere. Crystal and Cody used their ice and water attacks to stop the flames from burning them, waiting for the heat to subside. When it did, what they saw amazed them beyond belief.

Zack landed back on the ground but his appearance changed. He now had red wings on his back and he held his sword in his hand. He had red markings on his cheeks along with a cocky smile on his face.

"Humans are imperfect, and completely powerless. With the power of the Elementals, it is possible to change the world as we please." Gattaca said as he slowly walked towards them, his eyes set on them with deep hatred. "No war, no famine, no suffering. All we have to do is make a few sacrifices. But that's no problem. Human history has shown that sacrifices are needed in order to accomplish anything." Core explained calmly, still with a smirk on his face. "And together with the sealed prince of the Elemental Kingdoms, and the blessing of God, I will change the world."

Cody instinctively took a step back. "Zack can't do this alone!" He said to himself.

"He doesn't have to." Phantom said softly. Cody turned to his guardian and nodded. He gasped as he was lifted into the air and glowed blue. Phantom rose with him as water surrounded them and formed what looked like a bubble.

"We will become one…" Phantom muttered. "From the depths of the ocean…"

"To protect my friends, I'll count on our friendship," Cody muttered.

"We will become one…" Phantom and Cody muttered in unison as they glowed brighter. Cody let out a scream as the water rushed by him. "FUSION FORM!"

Cody landed back on the ground but his appearance changed. He now had blue wings on his back and he held his staff in his hand. He had blue markings underneath each eyelid.

_The one with the eyes red as fire, the one with the eyes shocking as sea, the ones whose inheritance the white pure blade. To voyage eighteen years from since they'd come, or the world in their hands would cease to become_

"_Blazing Nova!"_ Zack called as he swung his sword. A loud explosion occurred as the tip of the sword fired off a surge of fire at an abnormal pace, hitting Gattaca in the chest. For once, Gattaca let out an intense scream of pain. When the fire subsided, his held onto his chest, his body quaking.

"No…" Gattaca gasped. "It can't be."

"_Drowning Aqua_!" Cody swung his staff. There was another loud explosion as the gem in his staff fired out a wave of hard water. It slammed into Gattaca, causing him to scream in pain once more, sending him to his knees.

"No, no, no, no, NO!" Gattaca shouted.

A beam of light show down from the sky and hit Zack's and Cody's sword and staff. Electric, wind, and spirit energy moved down with the energy of light as it lifted the sword and staff into the air. As they watched, the two weapons blended together to form a heavy blade that held the attributes of Zack's sword and Cody's staff. Cody walked over to Zack and the two held out their hands as the sword floated down into their grasp.

"The blade…" Cody whispered.

"The ones who inheritance the white pure blade," Zack whispered back.

He lifted his head and looked at Cody. Their eyes met and the two of them slowly grinned at each other. They tightened their grip on the sword and focused their attention back on Gattaca, who was struggling to get to his feet.

"This is for our friends," Zack murmured.

"This is for the elementals." Cody added.

The two brought the blade up above their heads and swung it down in a sharp arc. An arc of light purple energy, mixing the red energy from Zack and the blue energy from Cody, struck Gattaca head on. There was an implosion that knocked everyone off of their feet. The orange light went away as the sky returned to its normal blue color, the black and purple clouds disappeared. The lightning stopped and the sun started to shine once more, immediately giving everyone a sense of relief.

The blade disappeared as Blazen and Phantom left Zack's and Cody's bodies, falling to the ground in their small forms.

Zack let out a heavy as he flopped onto his back, spreading his arms wide as the wind blew his hair out of his face. He grinned as Cody did the same, lying down next to him, moving into Zack's side in comfort.

"It's over," Zack breathed. "It's finally over."

"Finally." Cody agreed.

**THE END**

* * *

**A/N: **Once again it was a bit shorter than 10,000 words as well, but whatever. I basically don't have anything to say. I just hope that I got the change of prospective done well, even though it was supposed to focus on Zack, Cody, and Bailey (that's why you didn't really see much of everyone else). Don't worry, there's still an epilogue. It'll either be up later tonight or early tomorrow. But I'm going to shut up now and let this all sink in for you guys.

Cheers,

-Riles


	66. EPILOGUE

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

EPILOGUE

* * *

"Are you done yet?" Reihu asked as he turned his hat around so the brim faced his neck. He turned his green eyes to Rhuben. "We're meeting everyone at the park, aren't we?"

"What?" Rhuben turned and gave him an amused look as she put a box of hair dye back onto het shelf. She placed a hand on her hip, resting the other one on the shelf and smirked. "You can't wait to be able to run around and be chased by dogs."

"Funny," Reihu wrinkled his nose. "But I don't think your sister would like it that you called her a dog."

Rhuben chuckled. "Make sure she doesn't hear you say that." She said, jerking her thumb to her right, letting him know that she was just an aisle over.

"Too late," Riley's voice floated back.

"Told ya," Rhuben pushed her hair behind her ears. "I can get that later," she reached out and ruffled Reihu's hair. "C'mon, let's go to the park." She made a face and pulled her hand back as he made a low purring sound deep in his throat. "How many times have I told you to _not_ do that? It's really creepy."

"Sorry," Reihu slung his arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. "Can't help it."

"Mhm," Rhuben frowned as she peered at him. "How's your chest?" She asked, speaking of the wound that he had gotten in the battle from a month ago.

Reihu got a faraway look in his eye as he placed a hand on his chest, feeling the scar that had been left in its place. "It's alright," he replied slowly. "It hurts sometimes at night, but other than that it's fine." He started to walk out of the store. "C'mon. We're going to be late."

"Alright," Rhuben placed her arm around his waist, leaning into his side as the two walked out of the store.

Zack chuckled as he used his teeth to rip open a bag of candy as he walked over to Riley, who had a basket of food in her hand. "Hey, you might want to add this on to the list," he commented, motioning to the bag that was in his hand.

Riley looked up at him and made a face as she reached out and lightly hit him on the arm. "That's why you don't go shopping when you're hungry." She commented before taking the bag and looking the label over and shoving it back into his chest. "Either that or I don't go shopping with you, because it happens almost every time you go to get some food somewhere."

Zack shrugged and dug his hand into the bag of candy, taking out a handful and popped it into his mouth, chewing slowly. He followed Riley down the aisles as she finished grabbing food for the picnic that they were having with their friends in Liberty Park that day. He couldn't help but notice that she was limping a little bit.

"That limp is still bothering you?" he questioned.

"Yeah, every now and then," Riley replied with a shrug. "But it's not like I'm not used to it, I'll be fine." She walked her basket over to the front counter, paid for the food and then took the bags and she and Zack left the store. "It's good to see that Boston is going back to normal."

"Speaking of normal," Zack put an arm around her and pulled her out of the way of some people walking along the sidewalk. "How does it feel to be 18?"

"I don't turn 18 for another two days, Zack." Riley reminded him.

"I know, but since you guys are going back to Australia tomorrow" Zack paused. "Which, for the record, I'm not happy about." He smiled as Riley smirked at him. "So we might as well have it as a birthday celebration for you and Rhubes as well." Zack insisted. "It could be something else we could be happy about, I mean, we finally defeated out big enemy and restored the elemental world back to it's original state, _and _it's your guys' birthday, nothing can be better than that."

Riley stopped walking and looked at him seriously. "Are you always this optimistic?"

"Yes," Zack replied with a nod. "But that's only because you aren't. But that's one of the many things I like about you," he stated, wrapping his arms around her. "We balance each other out." He leaned forward and gave her a sweet kiss, of which she returned eagerly. He then grabbed the bag of food. "I'm getting hungry, let's go."

Riley rolled her eyes, sighing loudly. "When are you _not_ hungry?"

* * *

"Hey guys," Maddie waved enthusiastically as everyone arrived at the park. "I was wondering when you would all get here."

"You know Pat, he can never be on time," Julius commented with a teasing grin over to his brother. "So Christian and Core are gonna fire up the grill," he commented, motioned to the older man behind him. "And lunch is going to be done soon."

"Alright." Came the unanimous answer as everyone moved to lid down on the grass. Their guardians appeared and started to run around the, glad to be able to have some fun and not risk being seen by anyone.

"Hey Syd, I have a question for you." Bailey commented from where she was lying on the grass on her stomach, kicking her legs behind her. "What went on when you disappeared?"

"Oh," Sydney smiled impishly, gathering everyone 's attention. "I knew that question was going to come up eventually. Well, long story short, I found out that Geneva thought that you couldn't trust one of us," he motioned to himself, Crystal, and Cody. "I knew that I could use that to my advantage with a plan I had already thought of when we first started to find out about Halo Syndicate." He motioned to himself and his siblings this time. "I knew that as Zack and Cody were the strongest elementals in our generation that they were going to show that power eventually," he explained. "I didn't know when, but I knew it was going to happen."

"So I talked to Christian and Core about it and they agreed that they would be exhibiting that power soon as well. I knew for a while that Core wasn't our enemy, but I didn't want to say anything until he decided to say something about it, so I kept it a secret. When he told us, I knew that it would confirm the plan that I had created. So when the time was right, I knew that Gattaca was going to try and get some of us to come over to his side and I knew that we would be his targets. So using my darkness spirits, I faked that I had been taken over by him and went out to Gattaca's hideout to act like he had taken me over, and I was going to use that to watch Gattaca to see how he ticked and to see what he weakness was. During that time, I told Patrick and Noah about my plan, because as we knew of the prophecy, I knew that we had a big part in it, but we needed to catch Gattaca off-guard."

"When the final battle came around, I knew that this was when we were going to let everything happen and whether or not it worked was going to all fall down to this one moment." He cleared his throat. "So, knowing that Bailey had a big part of the battle, I needed her to be sure that I wasn't really fighting against you guys, which I eventually did. We gave some of our powers to Zack and Cody so they could unleash their ultimate forms and," he shrugged. "There you go."

"Wait," Tapeworm frowned. "Then why did you attack them."

"Oh yeah," Sydney shook his head for a moment. "Well, Patrick and Noah told me about Zack unleashing a really big source of power after Max…died…and I knew that it stemmed from his desperation to save his friend. So I needed them to feel that desperation again, I attacked them so they felt helpless and their want to save our worlds took over."

"So you knew about this the whole time?" Bailey asked Patrick, Noah, and Sydney, who nodded in reply. She then turned to Riley and Rhuben. "And you knew about their plan as well?" They nodded. "And from the very, _very _beginning, before I met you, you had this whole plan figured out?" She asked Sydney, who nodded once more. "So, what did Geneva mean when she said that you couldn't be trusted?"

"Probably," Zack spoke up. "That he couldn't be trusted to tell us the truth."

"Or that he couldn't be trusted to say anything at all," Crystal supplied. "Which doesn't make a difference because they all do that."

"Yes, it's probably one of the many annoying things about us Jacksons." Julius said with a grin.

"I think they learned that from experience." Core suggested, causing Christian to roll his eyes and shove him on the arm.

Cody smiled as he watched the guardians run around with each other before going back to their Masters and Mistresses, tired and waiting for their food. It was good to see everybody so happy and so carefree. It was a welcome change from all of the stress that they had felt in the past years. But it was weird at the same time, he was able to walk around and not worry about having to have someone attack him. He could talk on the phone without thinking that someone was going to use the information against him. He now had a girlfriend that he didn't have to worry about being attack. But, as weird as it was, a part of him missed the constant action. Cody pulled Phantom into his arms and his smile widened as phantom crouched down into his cupped hands, as if it was a nest.

But Cody's smile faded as Phantom started to glow a bright blue. He looked around and noticed the other guardians glowing in their respective colors as well. Before their eyes, they all turned back to their small forms, still glowing. He looked at Phantom and noticed the sad expression in his eyes.

_"That's right," Phantom agreed. "Our world is the one that's falling apart as well as yours, and we want this to end as much as you do." He exchanged looks with Blazen, his wing-tips fluttering slightly. "No matter how it will end, we just want everyone to be happy."_

"They're going back." Cody suddenly realized.

"What?" Sydney asked, looking up at him, holding SpiritSaru tightly in his arms. "What do you mean?"

"The balance between the two worlds has been saved," Cody replied slowly, looking at Phantom, who nodded back at him. Tears started to slide down his face. "Because it's back in balance, there's no need for elementals on earth anymore or the guardian to protect them. They're going back…we're not elementals anymore." As he said those last words, he felt significantly weaker. "That's what you mean that day, wasn't it?"

Phantom nodded.

A pillar of white light sort of like a path came out of the sky and stopped on the ground in front of them. It was as if it was the elemental world telling them to go back home.

"Cody's right," ThunderTatsu said as he slowly started to move out of Patrick's hands, up into the air. "We have to leave now; the elemental world is calling us. I won't forget you, Patrick."

"ThunderTatsu, don't go." Patrick cried, reaching for him once more.

"Don't worry," SilverTatsu spoke up, starting to float as well. "I'll make sure he doesn't get into anymore trouble."

"Now if only I could do that for Pat," Noah said as he slung an arm around Patrick's shoulders, causing his older twin brother to roll his eyes.

"Are you going to be ok without me, Crystal?" Dricer asked from where he was on his mistresses' shoulder. He let out a soft purr as Crystal ran her hand over his back.

"Are you kidding?" She asked. "I have my dad and Aaron to look after; I think I'll be fine." She gave him a kiss on the side of the head. "But if you're ever lonely, you have DalFang and DeathLiger with you." She motioned over to his brothers. She frowned, her eyelids lowering.

"I'll always be watching you." Dricer reminded her as he slowly floated off of her shoulder.

"I know," she replied with a nod.

"Who would have thought that after having you guys around since we were 9…we were going to have to eventually let you go?" Rhuben asked as she gently pushed back DeathLiger's mane. He playfully chased her finger around, trying to bit her fingertip. Riley quickly ran her hands over DalFang's back. "We saved you guys, and you returned the favor tenfold. I just didn't think that we would have to let you go."

"Well, everything happens for a reason," Riley finally spoke up. She gave a soft smile. "I'm just glad we had them around when we needed them. Life should be easier now."

"Uneventful," Rhuben added. "But easier."

"It's like Dricer said though," DalFang ran up Riley's shoulder and licked her cheek. "We're going to be watching over you guys, whether your know it or not." He waved a paw as he and DeathLiger were lifted into the air as well.

Zack sighed as he looked down at Blazen, who looked back at him. He didn't know what to say. This guy had been his best friend for years and now he was leaving? He was never great at saying goodbyes either, and he felt that he was going to cry, but it wasn't going to happen. Blazen seemed to understand though; he hopped up onto Zack's shoulder and snuffed his face against his cheek before unfolding his wings and flying up to join his friends.

They all let go of their guardians and watched as they drifted off up into the sky, to go back to their home. Even though she didn't have a guardian of her own, she couldn't help but feel just as bad as the others were feeling, having to let go of their friends. Tears pricked t her eyes and as Bailey watched, she caught a glimpse of Geneva and Gattaca smiling down at them. She lifted her hand and gave them a wave, smiling as they waved back.

Bailey sighed and grabbed Cody's hand, leaning into his side as their friends disappeared from sight.

Even though it was probably the hardest thing for them ever to do, to give up their friends and their powers, the one thing that they had known for years, they knew that they had to do it. They also knew that this wasn't the last they would hear of the elementals.

They knew that they would see their friends again.

Deep in their hearts…they knew…

* * *

**A/N: ** Melody has officially ended. I can't believe that it took me almost two years to finish this story, but it was a very enjoyable (almost) two years. I hadn't intended on writing a new SLOD fic after Xenophilia (the re-write at least) and at that time I had officially retired from writing SLOD fics. But then I had a dream about SLOD/Elementals and how Bailey would react to it and that's how I got the idea for this story. So, if you've ever watched Digimon season 3, you'll notice that I made an homage to that in this epilogue, I thought that it would be the perfect way to the end the story since it's a standalone, and because we have never talked about them going back to the elemental world and them not being elementals anymore, so…yeah….

I want to thank everyone for reading and reviewing this story and for helping motivate me to continue writing it, even when I started to slow down on my updates.

**Tiger002**: you really helped me when it came to critical thinking and how to answer some questions in creative ways that made sense. I love talking to you about the elemental world and how they can co-exist with the real world. You're also good with constructive criticism, so I can make scenes/conversations better.

**Owlhero**: you gave me such great questions that I really wanted to answer them in very interesting ways for you. Like Tiger002, you make me think really hard about how things will be done, and you always seem to catch hints and things that I put into chapters that other people don't.

**DarkElements-Jackson-Fan**: Cody, you motivate me without even reviewing. Knowing that you always read my stories and send them off to your brothers really make me smile. Thanks for the constant support.

**MysticMelody101**: I don't think there's a story that we have ever written that you didn't like. I don't know if you've read all of our old (and embarrassing) slozac/elemental stories, but I'm so glad that you liked this and that I made it so that anyone that started could keep up with everything. You also were able to catch things that I would throw into a chapter at the last minute, thinking that no one would find them. You deff got some skills there!

**Dawn, and Always, and SLOD-Lvr**: You guys are some of the best anonymous reviewers that I could ever have. You're so loyal and you're always able to make me smile. Thanks for the continuous support!

Thanks so much, again, for giving me constant support. I partially wrote this story for myself, and then I partially wrote the story for you guys. So I'm glad that you enjoyed it. I don't know if I'll ever write another SLOD or SLOD/Elemental story, but if I get a really good idea, I just might. So keep a lookout on my profile to see. I'll be glad to continue betaing for people that I already am.

Thanks again for everything.

Cheers,

-Riles


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